Early this morning Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Hulk, Iron Man, and Captain America packed their bags and moved from the "House of Marvel" to the "House of Mouse," as Disney announced its 4 billion dollar purchase of Marvel Entertainment and its many hot comic book properties.
Comic book movie fans, who have been delighted over Marvel's recent movie productions, are already wondering what Disney's acquisition will do to the superhero movie genre. While in the past Marvel granted cinematic rights to their characters all over the place, some of which are still obligated to the likes of Fox (X-Men, Wolverine, Daredevil, The Fantastic Four), and Sony (Spider-Man). they've more recently kept tight control of their characters.
After the disappointment that was Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk, Marvel took the rights to the green goliath back from Universal, vowing to do the Hulk justice with its reboot and along the way putting out its first fully-funded, Marvel-made movie: Iron Man, which ended up being a major summer blockbuster. Both fans and the industry soon saw the benefits of Marvel doing its own filmmaking — especially since rival DC Comics, wholly owned by Warner Bros since the late 80s, seemed to be having trouble getting even their major properties off the ground.
The Walt Disney corporation may look at Marvel's existing license agreements and renegotiate with each individual studio to buy back the movie rights ... or they could decide just to sit back and let the other studios do all the work. Superhero movies are currently cinematic cash cows and the Walt Disney Company could earn a substantial profit by continuing to license out the hot comic book characters.
The main fear amongst fans is that Disney's family-friendly focus will have a dumbing down effect on Marvel's more gritty characters. Hopefully they're financially smart enough not to tinker with hot movie commodities already in production, but long-term projects like The Avengers and The First Avenger: Captain America may come under scrutiny.