Unit 8 Assignment
1b- Teona McFadden.
Ownership
Practice.
The two
companies involved in this article are Disney and Marvel. Disney being a
multi-media conglomerate company and Marvel being a subsidiary company, before
Disney bought it.
Both of
these companies are very well know, but both for things in the media industry.
Disney is mostly well known for their films, children’s channel and programs
and the theme parks, which are worldwide. One of Disney most famous films is
still ‘The Lion King, now 20 years later since it was released. Where as, Marvel started out with their
world famous comics, but then started making movies mostly based on these
comics. One of Marvels most well known and popular transition from comic to
movie is ‘The Amazing Spider-man’. The comic being released in 1962, with the
film followed 40 years after and became a sensation.
This all
happened in 2009, when Disney paid $4bn plus shares. One reason Disney wanted to introduce Marvell
to there ever growing company, was due to the lack of varied audience. Disney’s
target market is female, children, where as Marvel defiantly get a much larger
viewer base of boys rather than girls. Marvell also might have wanted to sell,
because of their financial situation. Back in 1998 they went bankrupt and have
been slowly improving, but maybe they felt it was time to sell on since they
are now out of dept. Also the fact
that Disney seem to be trying very hard to operate as a monopoly in the film
industry, so buying Marvell out could be another step towards that aim.
It’s obvious that because, Disney already are
such a global conglomerate that maybe buying another company like Marvel might
not effect them that much. Although, because of the massive difference in
target market and how they can use the popular Marvel characters on their TV
outlets, I think it will. Like I mentioned earlier, Disney seem to be aiming to
become a oparate as a monopoly in
the film industry.
Now Disney have a wider target audience, and
still have all these different subsidiaries I would aspects that the other
companies would suffer. Marvel is already a very popular company and already
own well known and well, liked characters. This means that Disney can only
create upon these facts and hope to deliver, to the very passionate audience
base that Marvel have created.
One of the main issues
surrounding this deal is that the fan base that have been following and
supporting Marvell throughout all the releases and comics are not very
supportive of the recent changes. It has happened in the past so it’s not
surprising that Marvel fans are protesting about what they think Disney should
change. For example, changing the characters to dramatic effect, getting rid of
loved characters or adding unwanted characters. Personally this is a major
issue as the audience, are the people buying the products made, so if they aren’t
happy about the change it will effect earnings.
A second problem is that
anything Marvel do without Disney’s help, Disney will still get 40% of the
profits. This means Disney will get a huge chunk of the money from doing
nothing.
Lastly, much to peoples
surprise Disney don’t have all the rights to all the Films produced by Marvel
or all the characters. This means they don’t have control over all of the films
or TV shows.
I have learnt a massive amount about how huge
compares work. The fact that even though Disney don’t operate as a monopoly
just shows how much power and influence you can have in the film industry just
by having lots of subsidiaries. Also because of the amount of money they have,
which is due to the fact any company will pretty much do what their parent
company wants them too.
Product Placement.
– Any
form of audiovisual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or
reference to a product, a service or the trade mark thereof so that it is featured within a
programme.
One example of product
placement used in a big feature films, is in ‘The Internship’. This film is
based on two main characters who get an internship at Google. Throughout this
films they make references to Google and making statements about how it works
etc. In this example, the film has made money, because Google is highly
featured and
This is an example of a Blockbuster
film that has made money from Product placement. It's uncertain how much Google
actually paid for how much it was featured in this film. Although due to how
highly spoken of it was, we can guess it was a lot.
Independent
Film Companies.
Independent film companies, like BBC
Film have helped fund low budget films like 'Ill Manors'.
Sponsorship Deals within the film industry.
Sponsorship in the film industry is similar to
product placement, but it's not in the film. For example, there might be a commercial
before the film starts or in special screening they might give the product away
(drinks companies) and then show an advert.
