Is buying Marvel Disney’s latest masterstroke?

A week on from one of the biggest surprise announcements of the year, could Disney’s acquisition of Marvel be a long-term masterstroke?

It's not too long ago that Disney was facing a mountain of potential problems. In the middle of the decade, Pixar - its money making machine for the previous ten years - was threatening to go its own way. The Disney brand itself was struggling, with its film business - while enjoying successes with older audiences - finding it more difficult than it had in a long time to find a foothold in the family movie market, at least without the help of Jerry Bruckheimer (who brought along the small matter of the Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure franchises). In animation in particular, Pixar and DreamWorks had seized the initiative. Furthermore, those Disney films that did poke through highlighted an ongoing problem with the brand - it appealed to younger children, but in the even-more-lucrative teenage market, it simply wasn't getting through in the way that many of its rivals did. Disney, after all, was for kids. Right?

Naturally, much of the blame for this was laid at the door of Michael Eisner, Disney's CEO who finally left the House Of Mouse in 2005 after a 21 year stint with the company (it's worth picking up a copy of the book DisneyWar if you've not come across it before - it has plenty on Eisner's reign, and unsurprisingly, a good chunk jars with Eisner's autobiography). In his place stepped Robert Iger, and it's fair to say, he seems to have got people a lot more excited about the Disney brand. Under his watch, Disney has exploded into the teen market with the likes of Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, Camp Rock and such like (although these are clearly female-centred productions), while shows such as Lost and Desperate Housewives (both of which Eisner was reportedly no fan of) have continued to rake in the ratings.

Yet it's not those things that Iger will be remembered for when the next chapter of the Disney history book is written. After all, there's an argument that the foundations of these successes were firmly planted in the Eisner era. No, where Iger has differed from his predecessor, and where he's yanked Disney back to the forefront of popular entertainment, is in his recognition that the company is weak in various areas. And then, crucially, he's been willing to do a really big deal to plug the gap.

Eisner, of course, was no slouch in this department, and the acquisition of the ABC television network in the US happened on his watch (although it's fair to say that it's not worked out quite as well as all concerned probably hoped). But Iger has now done two major transactions that are set to serve Disney for decades to come.

Billions
The first, of course, was Pixar. Iger was, to an extent, backed into a corner on this one, given that Disney in 2005 clearly needed Pixar more than Pixar needed Disney. Just look at the animated hits that Disney has churned out since - Bolt and Meet The Robinsons, for instance - and you soon appreciate that their grosses and level of ambition are dwarfed by the money brought in by the likes of Pixar's Cars and Up, along with critical response to them. Cars alone justified the $7.4bn of Disney cash that would be required to snap up Pixar, given that the film brought in $5bn just off merchandising and licensing sales, and thus Iger pushed ahead with the deal.

In one swoop, he averted the major crisis of Pixar heading elsewhere, and also brought John Lasseter - arguably the most influential man in Hollywood animation right now - into the Disney fold formally. The move also cemented Disney's animated slate long term, aided in recent years by the fact that Ratatouille, Wall-E, Cars and Up all steamed over the $200m mark in the US alone. Pixar has continued to deliver Disney a blockbuster a year, and a bloody good one at that.