The Walt Disney Company is one of the most well known and beloved companies here in America. Today, Disney expanded its family. The company purchased Marvel Entertainment Inc, home of Spider-Man, the incredible Hulk, and X-men. And it was not cheap. It cost Disney a whopping $4 billion. This may seem like a good move because Disney only attracts a certain range of people. Disney shows like Hannah Montana and bands like the Jonas Brothers only attract the teenage girl crowd. Now with Marvel included, Disney hopes to bring in the male audience more. The company now owns a catalog of 5,000 Marvel characters. Will this be enough to bring in the male age range of 8-18? Yes most likely it will. Movies like Iron Man certainly was attractive to that age range. Disney hopes to broaden their audience but what will happen to the kid-friendly attitude Disney currently has? Will the violent structure of Marvel put a dent in Disney's magical label? Could Disney lose an audience by promoting some racy content? On the other hand, will Marvel lose any audience by becoming 'Disneyfied'? This merge will be interesting to see when it occurs.
I definitely agree with the fact that Disney bought Marvel to expand its audience. Gaining control of Marvel gives Disney the right to make all of their comics into movies, and that can potentially be a huge source of revenue for the company. Disney will most likely create more superhero movies with their new purchase, however I don't think that these superhero movies will be 'disneyfied' in any way. If the movies were influenced by Disney, they would lose some of their appeal and therefore their new-found audience. All in all, I feel the purchase was made so the company will have another audience and ultimately another way of making money.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Claire said and I think that it is possible for Disney to expand their audience through Marvel. However, I also think that it will be possible for the two audiences to remain separate. Just because Disney will be making movies that fit into more than one genre doesn't mean that an audience will be lost. In a way, I think this will actually give Disney an upper hand and will able them to gain viewers as apposed to losing them. I do not think that this purchase will end the magic of Disney.
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