Marvel Entertainment: Marvel Studios
Amy J. Keller
June 28, 2009
This case study focuses on the Marvel Studios franchise. Marvel Entertainment took a huge risk when it decided to stop licensing its’ characters to outside production companies and develop their own in-house productions via Marvel Studios. This study focuses on the history of Marvel Studios and what harm or benefit has come from the creation of Marvel Studios and the expansion into filmmaking.
Biography/History
Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is a prominent character-based entertainment company that is worldwide. The have a collection of 5,000 characters that cover a 70-year company span and sever media types (comics, toys, movies, et cetera). “Marvel’s strategy is to leverage its franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world, including feature films, consumer products, toys, video games, animated television, direct-to-DVD and online” (Viacom). Marvel Studios mission is to “develop and manage entertainment projects that leverage Marvel’s vast universe of creative content” (Marvel.com).
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Marvel had licensed out a number of their characters for movies and direct-to-TV productions. Very few of these are remembered today. One that you might recall is Howard the Duck; it didn’t do so well in the box office. The reasoning behind such failures was the lack of research the company put into it’s licensing (Stax).
Marvel Studios was created in the 1990s and it run by Avi Arad (President and CEO). Prior to heading Marvel Studios, Avi Arad had become one of the world’s most predominant toy designers, he produced children’s programming and had created dozens of successful products. Arad is titled with Producer and or Executive Producer in all of the Marvel films (Stax).
With the creation of Marvel Studios and the addition of Avi Arad, Marvel stopped licensing out their characters to unheard of directors. In the early 1990s, the company started to push for more established filmmakers that would give their long developed characters a little more respect. This ended up being a huge turn in events for future superhero movies of any kind (Stax).
In 1997, superhero movies hit a wall with the failure of Batman & Robin. Kevin Feige, president of production at Marvel Studios, believes that that is the first time there was a big change in comic book movies that lead him to the realization that characters were the most important factor when it came to films. He says that this realization is what has assisted him with helping Marvel Studios get off the ground (Firstshowing.net).
This first movie listed under the Marvel Studios name was Blade (1998). Blade turned out to be a hit with cult fans and was successful enough that the company decided to release a sequel. The success of Blade also garnered attention from Hollywood and helped push films like X-Men and Spider-Man back into production (Stax).
X-Men, despite the critics, was a huge success and really considered the “breakthrough” movie of the superhero genre. The big names brought the viewers to the theaters, but the main reasons for its’ success was it’s loyalty to the storylines and characters (Boucher, Geoff).
In 2005, Marvel secured “$525 million” in financing, with ten films to be produced in five years. Each film will have a budget between $100 million and $160 million. Due to the writers strike, the time-line for those films has changed, but the funding is still there (Boucher, Geoff).
With the release of Iron Man, Marvel Studios will become the first studio in the past fourteen years to greenlight its’ own $100 million movie (Boucher, Geoff). With its’ success comes the answer for anyone who questioned Marvel stepping into the filmmaking business. Because Marvel owns the intellectual property of Iron Man, they own the rights to everything that bears it’s name. These items include; the movie, the video game, the toys, the comics, the animated series, the direct-to-DVD animated movie and the Iron Man ride at an amusement park in Dubai. And all of these profits go right back to the company (Boucher, Geoff).
In past years and through to 2012, Marvel Studios has or is planning to released Blade, Daredevil, Elektra, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Hulk, Iron Man, Spider-Man, The Punisher, Ultimate Avengers, Doctor Strange, Captain America, Thor, Deadpool and more (Freebase).
With Iron Man 2 slated as the next release from Marvel Studios. Keven Feige has found himself in the same situation, as he was when he first started with the company, making sure the character is the most important element of the script.
Audience
According to Marvel.com, “Marvel has become the #1 choice for advertisers looking to reach the all-important, elusive kid, teen and young adult male” audience. They have a monthly readership of “10mm” and a circulation of “over 4.1mm/month.” In the world of comics, graphic novels and magazine publishing, Marvel holds more than 50% of the market share (Marvel.com).
Branding
A man named Martin Goodman, in 1939, during the Great Depression, left his job as a New York City publisher to develop a new medium of escapism. This was the introduction of Superman and the beginning of the superhero age (Cook, Brad).
The next major character to be introduced was Captain America during World War 2. In late 1941, Goodman’s nephew took over the company and created himself a secret identity, known as Stan Lee. From there comics took off until Congress pointed to comic books as a cause of juvenile delinquency. The industry adopted a code and stopped producing crime and horror comics (Cook, Brad).
Enter, Fantasic Four, in 1961. This would result in what is known as, “the Marvel way.” “Where over-the-top stories full of colorful superheroes, bombastic villains, and fantastic technology” would be the foundation to every storyline (X-Men, Silversurfer, the Hulk and Spider-Man). Unfortunately, this won’t be the only up and down for the superhero industry (Cook, Brad).
Fast-forward to 2008, Marvel Studios entered into an agreement with Paramount Pictures to distribute Marvel’s next five self-produced films to a worldwide market. These releases include; Iron Man 2, Thor, The First Avenger: Captain America, The Avengers and Iron Man 3. Rob Moore, Vice Chairman of Paramount Pictures was quoted as saying that Marvel has “popular characters” and has “proven ability to create compelling and visually spellbinding films” (Viacom).
In 2009, Marvel created a Global Branding Team, with the main goal of promoting Marvels superheroes to every corner of the world. This advisory board included Manmohan Shetty (Bollywood film producer) and Peter Yip (digital entrepreneur based out of China) and is headed by James Halpin (Marvel director for 14 years). Marvel would like to have better representation in Europe, Latin America, Africa, China, India and the Middle East (Mclean, Thomas).
Marvel Comics has been around for over 70 years and has grown wiser from the event of each of them. They know their limitations and have “captured the hearts and imaginations of several generations of children worldwide” (Cook, Brad).
Competition
Marvels’ main competitors in the comic book to film department are Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics (Google Finance).
Dark Horse Comics has had a different approach to the movie industry. In 1988, Dark Horse had begun to purchase the rights to distribute comics of already made, and successful, feature film characters. Some of these titles include, Aliens, Predator, Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Terminator, Tarzan and Conan (Dark Horse Comics).
Dark Horse is also responsible for the start of the “vs” series like Aliens vs. Predator. In 1992, after a couple of years of success at making popular movie characters into comics characters, Dark Horse Comics decided to form a division call Dark Horse Entertainment, Inc. and has since made its’ comic book character into big screen characters (Dark Horse Comics). Some of these titles include, The Mask, Timecop, Hellboy, Mystery Men, Aliens vs Predator, Mystery Men and 30 Days of Night. Dark Horse has teamed up with Universal Pictures for it’s next film, The Secret (Dark Horse Entertainment). While Dark Horse is a predominant player in the comic book genre, it has yet to have the success that Marvel has had.
Another large competitor of Marvel is DC Comics. In contrast to Marvel and Dark Horse, DC Comics has not created a movie division of its franchise. This is most likely due to the fact that DC is owned by Time Warner and Time Warner already has its’ own film divisions; HBO Pictures, New Line Cinema and Warner Brothers (About.com). DCs’ characters have still made it into the theaters. Riding on the success of the last two Batman installments (Batman Begins and The Dark Knight) and the latest Superman movie, DC had finally started creating successful films (Meeks, William).
Cinematical.com reported that DC has put all of their “properties on hold for the foreseeable future (with maybe the exception of a certain caped crusader).” Joss Whedon explains the reason why DC’s characters don’t work well as movies is due to the fact that they are detached from the real world. He says, “DC’s characters, like Wonder Woman and Superman and Green Lantern, were all very much removed from humanity. Batman was the only character they had who was so rooted in pain, that had that same gift that the Marvel characters had, which was that gift of humanity that we can relate to.” Whedon, at one point in his career, was writing a script for the Wonder Woman movie. But the movie never made it past that stage (Barnes, Jessica).
Films based on DC characters include, but are not limited to; Superman, Batman, Catwoman, Swamp Thing, Constantine, The Spirit and Watchmen (Superheroeslives.com).
Strategies
David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios, says, “We’re not in the movie business, we’re in the ‘Iron Man’ business right now.” And just as Joss Whedon said above, characters that people can relate to are what make Marvel special. And Kevin Feige agrees. He says that “they are people who become heroes but also have flaws and they struggle with them,” “the costumes can easily be the stars of these movies if you let them be… you have to flesh out the character.” He goes on to say, “they battle bad guys, but they also battle these things within themselves” (Boucher, Geoff). Iron Man was Marvel Studios first try at being a stand-alone production company that can make big-budget films and be successful.
A twist that has been showing up in recent films is characters making surprise appearances out of nowhere, sometimes leading up to their own stories. He states that, “they only do things if they can do them right” (Firstshowing.net). This is a great way for Marvel to promote and introduce new characters and storylines.
Conclusion
Marvel Studios has proven itself with the success of Iron Man. But some obstacles still stand in the way. Some of the company’s biggest names have already been rented out. Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and X-Men have all been licensed to other production companies. And the company’s executive, Arad, has left, as well. Not to mention that Daredevil and Ghost Rider have already had their shot at silver screen fame (Boucher, Geoff). But with a library of 5,000 characters, those four or five seem insignificant. And it isn’t slowing Marvel down. The company regained the rights to its’ Hulk license and has Captain America and Thor already in development, not to mention, Iron Man 2.
And if that’s not enough for you, when Marvel Entertainment went public in 1995, they sold for “$12” a share. In 2008, their stock was around “$25.60” a share (Boucher, Geoff). Currently, according to Google finance, the Marvel Entertainment stock sits at 34.67 per share.
References:
Viacom. (September 2008) Marvel Studios Enters Into New Worldwide Distribution Agreement With Paramount. Retrieved from:
Marvel.com. Annual Report 2008. Retrieved from: http://marvel.com/company/pdfs/2008_annual_report.pdf
Stax. Featured Filmmaker: Marvel Studios. Retrieved from: http://movies.ign.com/articles/426/426098p1.html
Firstshowing.net. Profile on Marvel Studios with Big Updates from Kevin Feige. Retrieved from: http://firstshowing.net/2009/06/07/profile-on-marvel-studios-with-big-updates-from-kevin-feige/
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Meeks, William. (November 2007). Upcoming DC Comics Movies. Associated Content. Retrieved from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/436839/upcoming_dc_comics_movies.html?cat=40
Barnes, Jessica. (February 2009). Joss Whedon Explains Why DC Comics Movies Won’t Work. Cinematical.com. Retrieved from: http://www.cinematical.com/2009/02/25/joss-whedon-explains-why-dc-comics-movies-wont-work/
Superheroeslives.com. DCComics. Retrieved from: http://www.superheroeslives.com/indexdc.htm
