Is buying Marvel Disney’s latest masterstroke?

Marvel
However, last week, Iger took his boldest step yet, with the $4bn acquisition of Marvel. This was, appreciating we're understating this a little, a shock move, albeit one that had been in some form of discussion for several months. The state of the world economy has arguably left Marvel vulnerable to such a deal, even though it's enjoying far greater successes than most, particularly in movies (you can't imagine it entertaining such a deal two or three years back). The response from hardened Marvel fans has not been rip-roaringly positive, although the continued independence of Pixar is at least a positive sign. But for Disney, it might just plug a hole in its movie business that'll serve the company decades into the future.

And it'll need to, as there's little evidence that the purchase of Marvel is going to bring instant riches to Disney, nor plug gaps in its blockbuster movie output for a good while yet. Looking at the catalogue of tens of thousands of Marvel characters that will fall onto the Disney asset register, which are the real money-makers it'll be seeking to exploit? X-Men is tied to 20th Century Fox for some time, and Spider-Man is glued to Sony for the foreseeable future. Thus, while Disney will now have slices of those pieces of pie, it's some way off outright ownership of the lucrative movie franchises. Iron Man 2, meanwhile, is being distributed by Paramount, and the studio also has the rights to distribute Iron Man 3, Captain America, The Avengers and Thor. Those are all films, undoubtedly, that Disney would like to be releasing itself.

Which doesn't leave Disney with many names of the profile it'd require to get a major summer blockbuster up and running. The Punisher big screen franchise is dead, the Hulk will need another reboot, Fantastic Four is getting one, Ghost Rider may get a sequel, Daredevil was being mooted for a reboot at Fox and Blade is pretty much dormant. Of the films in production, Ant-Man, Nick Fury, Runaways and Sub-Mariner are likely to fall under the Disney banner, but none of them have the earning potential on paper of a Spider-Man sequel.

Fruits
But then Robert Iger is nobody's fool. And the more you look at the Marvel and Disney deal, the more you suspect that the fruits of it, for Disney at least, aren't going to be coming for a good decade or so. In the meantime, $4bn is a lot of spare change to spend (it'd easily pay for a dozen major blockbusters), and given that the fad for superhero movies might pass in the next few years (it does seem to be a cyclical thing), Disney is certainly taking a far bigger gamble here than it did when it bought Pixar.

But it might just be the Mouse's smartest move in some time. Because what it's just bought itself are characters engrained in decades of history and tradition, who have continued to deliver for Marvel and entertained punters for the duration of that time. Disney has also, in the process, plugged a demographic hole in its company's offerings, and suddenly become a major player in the superhero market, an area on the big screen at least it's struggled to get a foothold in (Sky High and The Incredibles being its best stabs. The latter, of course, being tremendous).

The hope and feeling, though, is that, to protect its investment, Iger needs to ringfence Marvel, and let it carry on doing what it does, with the minimum of interference (and perhaps it could even let Marvel breathe fresh life into Disney's own characters in comic book form). If it does that, then it could prove to be as equally a strong move for Disney as the cementing of Pixar four years ago. If it doesn't? More fool it. But - while the union of Disney and Marvel provokes many questions and fears - you suspect that Iger and his team are smart enough to know what they're buying, and to work out who the experts in the equation really are.