Disney Buys Marvel; Fantastic Four Meets the Three Little Pigs

Under the terms of the deal, Marvel shareholders will receive $30 cash and 0.745 shares of Disney stock for every share of Marvel stock owned. That values each Marvel share at $50 based on Friday's closing stock price for Disney.

The obvious question: what happens to existing licensing deals? Disney said in a conference call that there'd be no issue with existing Marvel licensing deals, and that when they expire, they wouldn't necessarily be brought in-house (though they could be).

Going forward, Disney noted that the Disney XD channel, targeted at boys, is already running 20 hours a week of Marvel content. They have been looking to licensing more Marvel characters in the future, and this just makes it all the easier. Additionally, with Disney's resources, Marvel content can better reach international markets.

Disney said the acquisition will hurt its earnings per share by a mid-single digit percentage in fiscal 2010. They expect the impact to be positive by the time 2012 rolls around, fueled in part, they said, by 59 million new shares and also by a number of new Marvel Comics-based movies: "Iron Man 2," "Spider-Man 4," "X-Men Origins: Magneto," "X-Men Origins: Wolverine 2", "Thor" and "The First Avenger: Captain America."

An interesting thought came to my mind: Disney's Donald Duck meets Marvel's Howard the Duck! Some crossover that would be. The Fantastic Four could also team with the Three Little Pigs.

Me? I've always been a DC Comics fanboy, and am looking forward to "Green Lantern," with the one, true GL, Hal Jordan, as well as a "Justice League" movie. Disney and Marvel vs. Warner Bros. and DC Comics. It ought to be interesting.