Tags : abc, disney, marvel, pixar
Marvel and Disney Together Is a Bit Weird
By way of introduction, Marvel is now owned by Disney. Yes, as of yesterday, the decades-long king of children’s entertainment, the reinventor of fairy tales, and clearing house for all things Mouse has ownership of one of the leading comic entertainment enterprises that is not necessarily known for being child-friendly.
I find this a bit weird.
Marvel’s cornerstones over the last seven decades have been Spiderman, The X-Men, The Hulk, Captain America, and a handful of other big-name titles, most of which have either already seen the silver screen or are slated to in the coming years. In fact, Marvel proved in 2000 that a comicbook-based movie could be not only highly successful but quality entertainment as well, arguably starting the the modern age of book-to-screen transfers that has produced gems like The Dark Knight along with utter abominations such as Punisher: War Zone.
But for Disney to purchase Marvel is a decision that makes me curious: besides the obvious financial benefits of merging two of the most successful entertainment operations of all time, what motivations could the Head Mousekeeter have? Disney’s productions, like Cinderella, The Lion King, and Bolt, are very different from the graphic and dark nature Marvel usually favors.
To be fair, a few of Disney’s arms produce slightly less G-rated material, such as Pixar’s Wall-E or ABC’s Lost, but even then the themes, or visuals, don’t approach the supreme violence of Wolverine, the adult lifestyle themes of Spiderman, or even the complex continuity of the Marvel Universe. So it makes sense that Disney has announced no intentions, for the foreseeable future, of influencing the production staff of Marvel, or even of disrupting the movies-in-progress.
This is good news, so long as they keep their promises – a cheery, joke-telling, lighthearted Logan would be entirely more disturbing than his modern depressive, angry, violent self. Perhaps Disney is truly interested in simply the financial benefits of owning the massively successful enterprise and will truly leave it to operate on its own, much as they have with Pixar.
Or maybe Disney is curious about turning Marvel’s creative talents inward to their own core cast of characters, in order to produce more adult-themed versions of popular titles.
Now that I can get behind.
Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.
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