How long were Disney and Marvel in talks?

[Knighthammer]

Sitting back thinking about the last few years, some decisions from Marvel and Disney seem to make more sense now that we know Disney and Marvel have merged.

The real question is how long were they in talks?

It feels like it could have been years.

Here's some decisions that seem to make more sense to me after the fact:

• Ultimate Avengers: Despite pretty good sales and rumors of the possibility of this series going into episodic production, we only ever saw two movies. Was Marvel's original intent for this series to be a Disney Launch Title? Did episodic production get "axed" because of shaky negotiations?
• Various Animation Styles: All the current Marvel series are using a different animation style making them largely incompatible for cross overs. Avengers, Fantastic 4, Wolverine, Ironman and Wolverine and the X-Men all have different enough animation styles that they are largely incompatible. Was this Marvel putting pressure on Disney by diversifying themselves out for potential finical protection?
• End of Jetix: Did Disney end Jetix with the intent to end the stagnate series associated with Jetix in an effort to relaunch with Marvel Titles? Disney DX DIDN'T have much to offer in animation when they first relaunched. It felt like they had a plan that fell through.

When you consider some of these events, it feels like the negotiations between Disney and Marvel may have been going on for a long time and each side took substantial steps in preparation but they kept hitting a snag for one reason or another.

What do you think? Is this reading into past events too much or do these and other events suggest to you that something has been going on for a long time?

[marvelfan101]

we really don`t know but with the fact that some of the older Marvel Dvds that Disney put out are starting to be re released again and the fact that Disney has been airing a lot of Marvel shows from the 90s and some from the 200s shows that these talks seem to have been going on for awhile but thats just my guess

[TheVileOne]

One problem I see though is that the Disney releases of Marvel shows on DVD are awful.

[Rick Jones]

Originally Posted by TheVileOne

One problem I see though is that the Disney releases of Marvel shows on DVD are awful.

It would be cool if Marvel handled any content and bonus material (like I guess they do for their Lionsgate releases) while Disney took care of distributition.

[babykhris]

I could see Marvel taking over all future releases now.

[Knighthammer]

Originally Posted by babykhris

I could see Marvel taking over all future releases now.

I'm frankly surprises they already haven't.

Marvel DID setup Marvel Studios with exclusive intent to release all Marvel labels through their own production company.

[Trevor]

Originally Posted by TheVileOne

One problem I see though is that the Disney releases of Marvel shows on DVD are awful.

Originally Posted by babykhris

I could see Marvel taking over all future releases now.

Well, don't forget that even with the two recent X-Men releases, those were in the planning stages months before Disney and Marvel announced their merger---so that means that those releases were being handled just by Disney, while Marvel had extremely limited control over what could be put on the discs (plus considering that before the merger Marvel and Disney were fighting over control of the Marvel properties it could be that Marvel told Disney to just issue the episodes but to not do any bonus features until all the issues were resolved).

[babykhris]

I haven't bought the Disney version of the X-Men dvd, but if Marvel was allowed to put them together I would possibly buy them.

[marvelfan101]

Originally Posted by babykhris

I haven't bought the Disney version of the X-Men dvd, but if Marvel was allowed to put them together I would possibly buy them.

you should buy them now so Disney sees a interest in this stuff and decides to make more Marvel Dvds

[Rick Jones]

Originally Posted by marvelfan101

you should buy them now so Disney sees a interest in this stuff and decides to make more Marvel Dvds

I don't we have to worry about them realizing that there's an interest. We just have to hope that there are more releases done in a timely and proper fashion.

[Jonny Modlin]

When is X-Men Volume 5 going to be released on DVD? After Disney releases X-Men on DVD in five volumes, will they re-release X-Men on DVD and will Disney also release more Marvel cartoons?

Jonny

[underdog]

The conception of a merge emerged almost a decade ago, according to Deadlinehollywood. Essentially, it was ten years in conception and three months in negotiation. Here's a quote from the article:

I'm told that, back in the 1990s, when Michael Eisner ran Disney and Bob Iger was his No. 2 (a teaming I liked to call FrankenEisner and Igor back then), the moguls had on-again, off-again coversations about acquiring Marvel. But there was never any attempt at a negotiation because "the brand didn't seem Disney," as a source tells me. Once Iger took over Disney as CEO, and recently embarked on its stock buyback, the Big Media company found itself sitting on excess cash even after investing in Pixar and everything else. That's when the troika of Iger, Tom Staggs, Sr EVP/CFO, and Kevin Mayer, EVP of Corporate Strategy, Business Development and Technology Group, stepped up their look for growth opportunities. And Marvel came up again, this time much more seriously. Iger even discussed this directly with his division heads. It's a testament to Disney's limitless penchant for secrecy that even though about a dozen people knew Disney had decided to go after Marvel, there was no leak.

In June, Iger flew to New York to meet with CEO Ike Perlmutter in his Marvel office. In a show of transparency, Iger had already let the wily but no-nonsense Israeli (who'd beaten back two billionaires, Ron Perelman and Carl Icahn, for control of Marvel) know that Disney was interested in buying Marvel and wanted to start negotiating. ("It would have been manipulative if I'd approached it any other way," Iger told a pal. "You know how that goes. Someone invites you for dinner. And, after a glass of wine, he tells you he wants to buy you. And the wine never tastes quite as good after that.")

But Perlmutter expressed little interest in a deal, even though he liked Disney and all that the name, company, branding, implied. "I've heard good things about Disney. But I don't need to sell. I don't want to sell," Perlmutter told Iger, according to my insiders. But, eventually, Iger got to the heart of Perlmutter's objection: Ike didn't want to retire. He wanted to continue to work because Marvel was what he loved.

As due diligence went on, Disney saw nothing in Marvel's books that indicated Marvel was under financial pressure or Perlmutter had any need to sell. So the price had to be right. From June to Sunday night, both sides eventually became "more comfortable" with the $4 billion valuation, according to my insiders. A little math shows that Perlmutter, who owns 37% of his public company, stands to reap $1.5 billion in cash and stock. Sources tell me that this sell-out has been Perlmutter's strategy all along. "This was always an acquisition play for Ike," one insider explains to me. "This deal with Disney just ups his game and creates shareholder value and lets him walk away a billionaire."

Content-wise, the two moguls agreed that Marvel would continue to operate independently of the notoriously micro-managing Disney in the same way that Miramax did under the Weinstein Brothers. Though that probably won't make even hardcore fanboys feel better about the deal they're pissing on all over the Internet yesterday and today. (Given what Iger likes to refer to as the "combustion of digital word of mouth" that operates these days, Iger and Perlmutter have their work cut out for them trying to get skeptical fanboys to believe that Disney has no intention of altering the creative approach which Marvel takes to its comic books and movies. Of course, it helps the corporate confluence between the two companies that Marvel's movie fare has been and will be "PG-13".)

Every subsequent meeting between Iger and Perlmutter took place in NY. Finally, it was late Sunday night, very late, that the deal was done. There was no celebration. Both moguls went back to their respective homes to get ready for Monday's early morning announcement.

One more thing you should know: I've learned that, for the past 2 months, Iger has been reading the new Marvel Encyclopedia to soak up the backstories of all the Marvel characters and comics.

http://www.deadline.com/hollywood/be...y-marvel-deal/

[lumpmoose]

Here's a little more on Eisner's desire to buy Marvel according to Greg Weisman, who was a Disney producer and former executive at the time:

2. FLASHBACKS:I can't help but be reminded of events in the mid-nineties, when Michael Eisner (then CEO of Disney) wanted to buy Marvel, so that he'd have super-heroes to compete with Warner Bros' DC Universe heroes (including Superman and Batman). Back then, however, Marvel was, or so I was told, a corporate mess. And it wasn't just that -- as now -- various studios already had the rights to individual characters, but that the rights had been double sold all over the place, and that every character pretty much represented a lawsuit in the making if not already in the works. Eisner was advised NOT to buy Marvel, and of course he didn't. But he REALLY wanted to be competing in the boys action/super-hero market. That was when the Gargoyles Universe was raised as a possible alternative. We pointed out that the Marvel Universe began with the Fantastic Four, and that we could use Gargoyles as a springboard to more properties and to an entire Universe.

http://www.s8.org/gargoyles/askgreg/search.php?rid=837

Of course with today's Kirby news and all the biggest heroes' film rights sold to Sony and Fox, today's Marvel doesn't seem a whole lot better.