And that's a bad thing? (I actually found PUNISHER WAR ZONE quite funny.)

MARVEL + PIXAR =

The Fantastic F...I mean The Incredibles:

So what does this mean for some current and future Marvel productions with other studios?

Ironman is with Paramount
Spiderman is with Sony
Punisher-Lionsgate
Hulk-Universal

Does this mean Disney will now be a co-distributor of these films and get a cut of the profits?

Don't play with my emotions like that! I love DW!

They already said those deals will run to completion.

I don't think Disney needs to do anything for a cut of the profits since they own Marvel now. Marvel profits == Disney profits, right?

I've got no problem with Disney since they put Lassiter in charge. I've thoroughly enjoyed some of the recent fair and quite a few of their live action films.

Nikki Finke's blog answered my question:

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/

The deal also includes any characters within those universes and the rights to make spin offs. (ie. a Venom spin off.)

Now they're all going to be 88 mins long and rated PG!

I don't see how that's any worse than the trainwreck that was Punisher: War Zone.

I really don't think this will have much of a negative impact in the long term. Disney can still keep more mature content under the Marvel banner without tossing their name all over it, and if they don't want to handle a property like Punisher, they can let Lionsgate continue to fuck that one up on their own.

The Muppets were on life support before Disney stepped in. Since Disney took over we got nearly every season of the Muppet Show on DVD(all of Fraggle Rock) seen some toys return to store shelves and supposedly have an original film in the works. There is no excuse for the Muppet Wizard of Oz though which happened on Disney's watch. It's possible that was already in the works though during the acquisition(I'm not that knowledgeable on the matter).

I think that property is doing better than before, but still isn't where it should be.

the more i think about this, the more i'm intrigued at how a Pixar/Marvel animated movie would work. while live action superhero movies have done very well in the theaters, the animated superhero flicks have been relegated to home video release (for the most part). unless it's something that is going to appeal to more than the teenage and/or male population, i'm thinking a pixar/marvel movie might not do as well at the box office as their usual fare. and i'm pretty sure pixar wouldn't do a movie that's straight to video, would they?

They have a new Muppet movie coming up soonish that was written by Jason Segel.

They did fine with The Incredibles. With more characters and superpowers to work with, a Pixar / Marvel collaboration would absolutely rule

I don't want to see animated superhero features.. I want to see live action superhero features. I might as well go back to collecting comic books if they're thinking about adapting titles just for animation. I don't care how well written the stories are. The whole fantasy of seeing your favorite comic book onscreen was to see how close they can translate it into live action.

I thought Disney was the good guy? Didn't they have a long fight with evil FOX to get the Marvel cartoons on DVD?

I think $4 billion is really generous. i didn't know Disney had that much cash laying around in this economy.

I think only difference for Universal is that they will be now paying Disney for Spider-Man. Universal also opened an attraction for Harry Potter, I think.

I think this is great news for the Disney parks - the Pixar toy story and buzz lightyear rides are a big hit.

I'd love to see Pixar tackle a Next Avengers sequel.

I really don't think this will affect much. Marvel will still be Marvel and won't really be affected by Disney. I don't think they really rule with such an iron hand. If there was any company to buy Marvel I would have picked Disney to have the least negative affect on creativity.

I am curious how this will affect theme parks. It is really interesting that Universal has a whole land dedicated to Marvel Comics. And Disney doesn't really have that many properties in their theme parks that wasn't developed in house and they are all relegated to MGM studios (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Muppets, Twilight Zone). So could there be competing rides in theme parks? Will Universal have to totally redo the Marvel Land into something else?

Are you poking fun at Disney or Fox here?

Good question. I think it's inevitable that Disney will take control of all of these characters over the next few years. Why else would they pay so much for this? The one thing that I have read over the last few years is that Disney has really tried to shoot for franchise movies, and Narnia didn't really do as well as they expected/wanted so they dumped it.

Personally, I'd love to see the X-Men films taken away from Fox.

not sure how that will work out since Marvel is a pretty big influence in Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, in fact one fifth of the park is Marvel superheros, including the hulk coaster, spiderman the ride, among others.

and also marvel is used alot in the other universal parks aswell.

i can imagine disney would want to feature these characters in there parks but what happens with the attractions licenses with universal theme parks

I know they did, but you also have to remember the target audience for that flick is not the same target audience for a normal Marvel superhero flick.

That's no surprise. Their wording about the exisiting contracts clearly indicates that honoring them is a "for now" basis. Once those contracts expire, you'll see all those franchises continued as Disney releases/properties.

As long as having them all under one banner means we get plenty of crossover movies, so be it.

This is a nightmare. Looks like I wont be be adding many Marvel films in my DVD library anymore. Oh well I'll find other ways to spend my $