There seems to be only one word on the mind of Disney fans throughout the internet communities; Marvel. Disney’s purchase of the company that created Spider Man, Iron Man, and more has far reaching effects. This deal has so many angles to it that it will no doubt take weeks, months, or even years to unravel what it all means to the film, theme parks, and merchandising industries.

But why did Disney want to spend $4 billion on the legendary comic book company? Yes, the potential for what these companies can do together is seemingly limitless, but Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times explored what it may also signal about the direction and capabilities of the Disney Company.
The Marvel deal, like the $7.4-billion 2006 pact Iger negotiated to bring Pixar into the Disney fold, is another sign that Disney’s top brass realizes that the company’s reign as an original creative engine for mass entertainment is over. Once an idea factory full of brilliant animators and Imagineers, Disney is now a mass merchandising machine in search of exploitable product, whether it comes from Marvel, Pixar or DreamWorks, which will be releasing its upcoming slate through Disney as well.
On the surface, it would seem Mr. Goldstein has a point, but if you look deeper into his arguments, it almost falls apart. For one thing, he seems to be basing his thesis that Disney is a creatively bankrupt organization only on the result of films released in the last 18 or so months…
What went wrong? And can Disney fix it?
The studio’s biggest failures in the past year showed Disney’s inability to reach the new family audience that has supplanted Disney’s traditional customers. Last Christmas, Disney thought it had a big winner with “Bedtime Stories,” which attempted to broaden the studio’s traditional family brand by marrying a kid-friendly concept to the young-male appeal of Adam Sandler. The studio tried a similar strategy recently with “G-Force,” another kid-friendly film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer in a bid to connect Bruckheimer’s broader-edged action brand to the traditional Disney animated audience.
Despite spending millions in TV advertising reaching out to the older-skewing (Disney-owned) ESPN sports audience, the movie failed to reach an older audience. As with “Bedtime Stories,” Disney found itself unable to age up its films.
While Disney may have failed to produce the giant blockbuster film, I think we need more than a calendar year and more than just the movie studio to decide whether this giant company is now creatively bankrupt. For one thing, while “Bedtime Stories” and “G-Force” may have been failures, “Up” and the “Hannah Montana” films clearly were not.
But Mr. Goldstein argues a broader point, that Disney in no longer “an idea factory full of brilliant animators and Imagineer”, and that just seems to be at best arguable. Do I really need to list the attractions that have been created in the last few years? Toy Story Mania? Expedition Everest? Ringing a bell here? And do we really have to point out how you can’t meet anyone under the age of 15 that doesn’t know every Hannah Montana or Jonas Brothers song? Can someone find me an 8 year old that doesn’t watch that Disney Channel?

But what is even more important is that if you decide Disney is now creatively empty, which it clearly is not, you must applaud the effort by Bob Iger to fix the problem. Installing John Lasster into a role as a creative supervisor, making Pixar the focal point of animation, and bringing Marvel in to appeal to a different audience are all master strokes. While I will admit that previous years have produced more massively popular films, other areas of the company are not suffering from a creative drain at all. When all is said and done, and this deal shakes out, I think Disney will end up being the single most creative company in the entertainment industry without any argument.