Disney and Marvel surprised the entertainment world at the end of August by announcing they planned to merge in a $4 billion cash and stocks deal that would make the comic company a wholly owned subsidiary of the House of Mouse. However as with all deals of this sort, it’s not a simple as saying they’re going to do it, as all sorts of hoops must be jumped before the merger can go ahead.
The final and most important of these is that the stockholders have to approve it. Well that’s now been done, with both Disney and Marvel’s shareholders giving the whole thing the thumbs up. The final deal is based on Marvel’s share price on New Year’s Eve and the final price values Marvel at around $4.3 billion.
The deal was completed before the end of trading yesterday, following a few regulatory hurdles, which means that Spider-man, X-Men and co. are now officially the property of Disney (although the film rights are still owned by others, so Sony will still make Spider-man movies, for example).
The initial plan when the deal was announced was to allow Marvel to continue operating relatively independently, but trying to find new ways to use Disney’s expertise to make more cash out of the company’s 5,000 characters. Let’s hope that doesn’t change, as Marvel has plenty of great plans, including, of course, The Avengers movie. Interestingly though, because of deals already in place, no Marvel movies will be released by Disney for several years, as the film rights to many characters are owned by other studios, and even the ones Marvel is making itself, like Iron Man and Thor, are covered by a distribution deal with Paramount. However the House of Mouse will still be able to profit from these, even though it would probably prefer not to give a chunk of the cash to another studio.
If you’d like to see the press releases annoucing that the deal has been completed, head over to Deadline Hollywood.