There was a time when Disney and Marvel existing under the same roof was utter madness. The notion of Spider-Man and Lightning McQueen being corporate comrades was incomprehensible. However, over the last 16 years, that’s become a reality. All the Marvel Comics characters have been Disney properties for nearly two decades, while Walt Disney Pictures has distributed Marvel Studios movies since 2012. Various Disney theme parks have also reaped the benefits of certain Marvel characters appearing as costumed characters or in flashy rides.
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However, all of that came from one fateful decision in 2009 for Disney to buy Marvel Entertainment. Today’s normalcy was a far-off possibility for the future when the Mouse House first publicly declared its intention to bring Marvel superheroes under the Disney umbrella.
Why Was It Important For Disney To Buy Marvel?
When Robert A. Iger took over as CEO of The Walt Disney Company in October 2005, the Mouse House was not in the best shape. For the first few years of the 21st century, Disney had been defined by a public quarrel between Roy E. Disney and former CEO Michael Eisner. Walt Disney Animation Studios was releasing bombs while the California Adventure theme park was a widely derided disaster. Pixar Animation Studios (then in a distribution agreement with Disney) was eyeballing the exit door. Disney needed some overhauling. Fast.
Iger’s radically different approach compared to his predecessor was immediately apparent in Disney purchasing Pixar Animation Studios for just over $7 billion three months into his tenure. That wouldn’t be the only splashy purchase Iger made as the head of Disney, though. On August 31, 2009, Disney announced it would be buying Marvel Entertainment, Inc. for roughly $4 billion. This gave the studio immediate ownership of characters like Spider-Man and Iron Man, as well as the Marvel Comics and Studios divisions, among many other elements.
Under Iger’s stewardship, Disney was desperately trying to secure young male audiences. It was the impetus behind Disney XD, a rebranded version of Toon Disney that was meant to be a Disney Channel “for boys.” Big-budget 2010 blockbusters Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Tron: Legacy, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice were green-lit for this explicit purpose as well. With the Marvel purchase, the notion in the Disney executive suite was clearly that the Mouse House no longer had to hope and pray Prince of Persia or a TV show like Aaron Stone could turn into a Hannah Montana equivalent for boys under 12.
Spider-Man and the other Marvel characters were pop culture legends that had always secured loyal fan bases from children of all genders, including boys. Iger spending $4 billion on Marvel was meant to “solve” this “problem” right away. Initially, though, this deal did come with some peculiar strings attached. Namely, at the time, the film rights to tons of Marvel characters were at other studios. Even the Marvel Studios films were locked into a Paramount Pictures distribution agreement through 2013. Still, Disney saw rich potential in this deal for the long haul.
How The Disney/Marvel Partnership Paid Off Big Time
To say that this purchase paid off for Iger and company is a massive understatement. The Marvel acquisition has proven to be one of the most lucrative Disney deals in history. In 2012, Disney (after making a 2010 deal with Paramount Pictures) distributed its first theatrical Marvel movie, The Avengers. Its $1.5 billion worldwide box office gross alone was roughly 37% of the amount Disney had spent purchasing Marvel. Over the next seven years after The Avengers, the various Marvel Cinematic Universe films released by Disney would hit greater and greater box office heights.
2019’s Avengers: Endgame would even score $2.79 billion worldwide, temporarily making it the biggest film ever at the global box office. Disney got a fantastic bargain for $4 billion, especially compared to the later $71.3 billion acquisition of the 21st Century Fox, Inc entertainment assets in March 2019. Disney’s marketing and release of Marvel movies didn’t just give this studio vital experience for later 2010s smash hits like Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
It also established new kinds of blockbusters for all American movie studios to try and create. We’re all living in a movie landscape molded by cinematic universe ambitions. Every studio still craves hits like those MCU movies Disney got to release in the 2010s. Even with the MCU’s recent box office troubles thanks to titles like The Marvels and Thunderbolts*, moneymakers like Captain America: Civil War and Black Panther are still motivating Disney to commit wholeheartedly to MCU productions.
Nobody could’ve imagined such a grand outcome and cultural shift for the Disney/Marvel deal back in August 2009, when Walt Disney Pictures only had one movie (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest) that grossed over $400+ million domestically under its belt. However, thanks to the Disney/Marvel deal, the Mouse House firmly moved beyond the aftermath of the Eisner era into its current reputation as a blockbuster factory. For better and for worse, cinema would never be the same after this acquisition that once sounded unthinkable to comic book geeks.
Avengers: Endgame is now streaming on Disney+.
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
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Image Courtesy of DC Comics
