The Walt Disney Company announced today that it would by Marvel in a $4 billion deal those amounts to about 60 percent cash and 40 percent stock. Marvel, the comic book titan, is home to 5,000 characters, includes some of the world’s best-known superheroes: Iron Man, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Captain America and Thor.
Disney plans to aggressively integrate Marvel characters into the Disney family, placing superheroes at Disney’s theme parks in Paris and Hong Kong and on Disney’s cable television channels.
“Marvel’s brand and its treasure trove of content will now benefit from our extraordinary reach,” Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, said in an interview with New York Times. “We paid a price that reflects the value they’ve created and the value we can create as one company. It’s a full price, but a fair price.”
The Marvel deal makes Disney a partner with Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment and 20th Century Fox, all of which have long-term deals to make or distribute movies based on Marvel characters, including Sony’s “Spider-Man” franchise and Fox’s “X-Men” series.
The purchase got mixed reception on Wall Street and has yet to be approved by Marvel shareholders.