Unit 8 Assignment 1b- Teona McFadden.

Unit 8 Assignment 1b- Teona McFadden.

Ownership Practice.

Disney Buys Marvel- http://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/aug/31/disney-marvel-buy-out

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.