Episode 26: Marvel
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All right listeners, to start the show today, we are going to play a little game of two truths and a lie. Today's episode will be covering the marvel acquisition by disney, and we are going to throw out the two troops in a lie right now, and we will tell you which one is a lie at the end of acquisition history in facts.

So get ready to predict number one for a brief stretch ending in an internal time Warner investigation, the president of dc comics acquired a large position in marvel stock. Number two, failed corporate radar and comic book villain carl icon, once made to play to gain control of marvel from bankrupcy. Number three, marvel owned far the baseball card company and was affected in a huge way by the one thousand nine hundred ninety four majority baseball strike, which is the lie you be the judge.

Easy, you wait, you wait, you who got to know? Easy you? Easy, you with you see me down, say you.

Welcome back to episode twenty six of acquired the podcast about technology acquisitions.

I'm been gilbert .

dd and we are your hosts. Today's episode is disney's two thousand and nine acquisition of marvel. IT really completes the saga for us here.

IT acquired where our first episode was the disney acquisition of pizza, then our six episode was disney's acquisition of lucasfilm. And all three of these, I believe, will have pretty similar tech themes. And and David, I think we will really be able to to understand disney strategy and what their portfolio looks like these days.

Yeah this is a um this all I feel like I always say this, but this will be a fun one.

Yeah no kidding and kind of a fun one here you're going into the holidays, so it's a nice one to tie up the year.

And speaking of disney traut of, uh, I P acquisitions, I am pretty excited about rogue.

Yeah, I thought you bring that upside. We watch the trailer before we started recording.

Awesome, awesome. I can't wait you. I mean, neither for .

listeners who if you're wondering, i'm not sure if I actually will sunday different. But this is the first time David, I are recording remotely Davidson in california right now.

the heart of silicon valley indeed.

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Well, we only have too much before the shell you want .

to let's jump in. So uh, this, uh, I can't remember we've done so many these episodes now, but this might be the earliest back in time that we're starting our acquisition history in facts. Oh yeah.

I think so. yeah.

I think IT is we are going back to nineteen thirty nine almost what is that almost eighty years ago um when a fellow named Martin and good men founded a company that he called timely publications in new york city very timely uh goodman um was a pop magazine publisher and he wanted to get on the gravy train of the fast virginy comic book industry um that was starting to take off and so he started timely publications as part of his publishing empire and the first comic book the timely published was called marvel comics number one which came out in october nineteen and thirty nine and IT included the human torch and the submariner which would be marvel comic book heroes for a long time to come and yeah the sub is .

a little a little bit more of a deep one.

Yeah that's that. Let's guys .

see what you doing there. It's pretty cool that it's a that the very first issue was called marvel comics yeah I think that you know crazy history they were about to hear of of all sorts of different others. Ship structures and consolidation unbundling and rebounders keeps the same name.

yes. Well interesting though they didn't actually change the name of the company to marvel until one thousand nine hundred sixty one so um twenty two years later uh but the very first uh comic book that they publish was called marble comics um and apparently was a big success uh it's sold almost a million copies uh which um I think there's a lot for a comic, but probably especially a lot for a comic book in nineteen and thirty nine.

But uh but the company timely would uh go on to do quite oil um create you know many of the iconic comic book superheroes and villains that we all know one think of today. Captain amErica was the first really big one that they created in one thousand forty one, which was, uh, I guess, what war two was going on at that point time. But the U. S I there and entered the ear was just about to enter world war two. Um the fantastic for, uh, spider man, the x man, iron man, the hold many, many other is lots of basically uh as A I love superheroes but not i'm not a huge comic book efficient to h so as A A casual comic book fan like everybody I know kind of accept .

superman and batman came from marble。 It's pretty much .

the whole cruel yeah it's like D C had you know the big superman, batman, wonder woman and then everything else is is marble um and ah so they they go on to create many of these many these characters um and then in one thousand nine hundred and sixty one, like we said, they actually change the name of the company to marble comics um also in one thousand nine hundred sixty one uh the editor of marvel uh who was a man and um who actually started at the company as an office assistant uh he was apparent he was apparently Martin goodman's uh wife's cousin and started at the company in the early days of an office assistance and became sort of the um the the spiritual head of uh the direction of of marble in the comics um and have very briefly .

actually the present of the studio right yes like one one or .

two years in there yeah uh A A towering figure in marvel history. Um he he decides to kind of pushed the company in the new direction in one thousand nine hundred and sixty one um and that was to make comics that were aimed at slightly older audiences， so not just Young children um and that was the first of those was the fantastic for uh which they launched in november one thousand nine hundred sixty one and was the first time that like comic book heroes were sort of yeah they always been like that the superman start like perfect image of a beto masculinity of IT and and um you know heroism and and the the fantastic poor were sort of like the square with each other and they were kind of you know anti hero in a way .

right more human.

more much more he even though they had superhuman powers, much more human than the uh superman of the D C uh franchise um and and that really kind of set pta a and uh marvel became much more um really sort expanded the market for what they were doing and what comic books uh as a whole as an industry was and um that was that was their name's and so the spider man was certain like the queen essential like teenage X T um you know teenaged t .

super here man man too .

the the same rami one .

with Tommy require I was like I was I remember that one seeing where he's like eo he has got his hair die black and it's like over one eye and he's yeah IT just like almost felt like jumping the shark already even though I don't really think I jumped the shark tells .

by the three but uh totally was uh ahead of his time um so uh that's A A big success for marvell. And then and then later in the sixties, in one thousand nine hundred and sixty eight the first marvel acquisition uh change of control happens when good men decides to sell out and he sells the company to the perfect film and chemical corporation uh which was later renamed caden's industries um and marvel then became one of their substance areas a underneath one of their subsidy is called the magazine management company. Very.

very gentle.

very generic honesty. When I was reading through .

some of this that felt like a wondering list of incredible error name.

I guess that's the thing when you you look at the company that goes back like almost eighty years, right and uh in a in a fun uh twist of for shadowing uh in the one thousand nine and seventies when when marvel zone by um by CS they actually strike a licensing deal with luis film and they published the star war s comic books in the seventies and eighties.

Wow, that's why because to me, like we've got a trilogy going on here and and pixar was actually owned by lucas film in the early days and lucas film and marvel had a licensing agreement in the early days. It's like it's kind of amazing. They all ended up under one roof and had time to join .

history along the way. Yeah, only Steve job or are somehow involved have been a lie.

That's right. H that would .

have been fun. So listeners, you know that Steve James was not involved in marble. Um uh so in nineteen eighty six a marvel changes hands again and cadence sells the company to new world entertainment uh the media company uh and then new world undergoes some struggles and ends up selling IT again shortly later to the billionaire ronal parlin in one thousand eighty nine, four, eight, two and a half million. And in another fun bit of for shadow of what's to come, parl man gives the quoted the time he says IT being marvel is a great many disney in terms of intellectual property. Disney got much more highly recognized characters and softer characters, whether our characters are termed action heroes, but marble, we are now in the business of the creation and marketing ing of characters.

What is that? Sound familiar?

Sounds super familiar. Hm, so uh roman's pretty ambitious. And he um shortly they're afterward actually ends up taking marvel public a and IT becomes a public company and then he starts expanding and so he took a public in one thousand nine ninety one and then in one thousand ninety two um they actually buy the uh the sports trading card company flare in one thousand hundred and ninety two um and then in one thousand nine hundred and ninety three uh marvel acquires uh slightly less than half of a company called toy bas which was a toy company um that they also in a licensing deal with to create action figures for for all the marvel superhero in villains and but that is really interesting they keep like vertically integrating and then unbundled .

ling and vertically integrating and then unbundled ling and it's it's interesting how like they kind of fluently move throughout partnerships. Ownership of there are core asset at being the characters and then moving in that out of publishing and distribution and merchandizes .

or baseball yes yeah I would love to see the perspective .

on that on that pickup yeah what the rest well now .

is in the middle of the baseball cards bubble um which we will come back to again in one sec. But but toy biz also will be important in the future. So they don't buy all of toy biz.

They just buy a slightly less than than a half a share of the company. Um and so things go along than a couple years later in kind of ninety five, ninety six time frame. Um things aren't looking so good for marble, so they have expanded a lot. Um the core comic book business, actually there was a big bubble in comic books in the mid nineties which doing the research for the show I kind of vehicle remembered um but even more so in nineteen twenty four um majority baseball went on strike and this was like a huge thing in the people thought this was the the death of baseball but IT and IT wasn't uh happily for baseball but IT was definitely the beginning of the death of the baseball card industry and absolute flare suffered huge losses when when this happened .

yeah I mean I remember with that that was the swipe, an indian's fan group and leave on that was the first .

first year jack of field was open and they didn't get A I remember you know and obviously being a seattle podcast that is a huge even I I didn't living seattle the time huge can graph doing your fan and he I think I remember he was on pace till like shatters the home run record that year and then the strike was sorted by the strike.

I'm pretty sure you're right because I think I member of that, the indians were really good too. And we were in the world series of next year and sort of growing up as like not weird that like the indians had this new ballpark in ninety four. And I think we actually played ninety five in the L.

C. S. So the division series we played, the mariners and and griffe was obviously instrumental in that.

But I member thinking like how do we have a newbould park and ninety four? But getting to the worlds series and ninety five and additional according me to us later later in the ninety like, oh, h there was no playoffs. Ninety four yeah. Like can you can you imagine like that if that happened with the nfl now? Like, oh yeah.

there no super body. Um IT was IT was terrible and like, uh he was such a huge baseball fan growing up and there was um IT IT was really a black mark on the on the sport um so um marvel is not doing so good. Uh, people are speculating, know the companies in trouble. Maybe i'll end up filing per bank.

Ca know why there was a comic book bubble like what were the other than the whole like fear thing? What were the external aliis creating struggle for marvel?

I don't know. Um I didn't do enough research on this. I wonder if I was related to just the whole in the baseball card bowl, uh, which is probably even bigger of above I and I was a huge baseball ard collector as or so many my friends at that point time, and still in my parents basement of boxes and boxes full of baseball cards that are now work less the the market just got flooded and I wonder if a similar dynamic was playing out .

in the comic .

book industry and I can see that yeah um so um there's all the speculation about the future marvel and and comic book William as a been referred to him in the in the centro carl I can takes notice and he and his firm start buying up some of the a debt that um that marvel had uh with public company even even with private companies.

If you have debt uh that uh often trades other people, not the people who loan you the money can then sell the debt. Other people and folks like carla and this was this is a big part of the playbook because they buy uh det in companies that they think are troubled and with the hopes that they're hoping that the company ends up filing for bankruptcy and then in core, as dead as they can end up taking control. The company a the the the not so charitable term for this in the industry is loan to own um or comic book filling yeah or or being a comic book billing.

So um this and this all starts playing out in the press and uh and then at the end of one thousand nine hundred ninety six in december, uh marvel does and filing for bankrupcy and so this all goes to court and h in early one hundred and ninety seven, the court rules that carl, I can can indeed take control the company and he does. So carl, like in coming with William, is now head of marvel. But I honestly .

sounds like elect their move .

IT totally does the only thing that would make this Better is if uh, garlic and we're also see e of dc comics. It's true, true.

But at last that this is probably a good time to our listeners are are. I'm sure they figured out by now, uh, carl icon is true. The fear thing is true. Um the CEO of dc owning A A large number of shares in marvel is false.

is false. So carl, I can uh now has control of marvel, but there's just one problem. Carl lecon didn't own all the debt and there are actually big wall street banks that had also loan marvel a lot of money and they still wanted their money back. So the court the court case wasn't over and the company still need to do officially reorganized an exit bankers'. So this is where toy is ends up coming back into the picture uh this this toy action figure company, uh and turns out I was owned by the sky named Isaac pro mother who was an israeli american.

And he ends up proposing a new plan to the creditors of marvel uh that involves toy biz putting up money uh and paying back the creditors and then taking control the company away from carl like on uh and the creditors and the courts actually decide go along with this plan. So control of marvel gets rested away from from the villa. It's like it's like the comic book, you know happy ending and uh, the superhero issac parl mother comes in to save the day. And asic actually still to this day is CEO of marvel even post acquisition.

right? So what happens to toy is then .

is that so toy buzz gets folded into marvel, I believe and and becomes part of the combined company.

So then at this point, marvel owns the the I P to the characters um and and has a merchandising division to actually sell sell the toys themselves.

Um I believe that I believe that's right. But it's still not like it's not a disney scale right consumer products division. And so in the meantime, something even more important for the future of marble happens. And that's that I I I believe for a long time, we've been making the various types of films and movies about the franchisees.

Um but uh, films based on marvel franchise is actually started to can catch on where the public and become pretty big movies um and I actually starts I did not realize this in one thousand and ninety seven that year when many in black comes out. Many black apparently was a marble franchise. I had no idea how .

no way because I knew there were comic books, but I always assumed he was one of those like after the movie .

comics no IT was a marvel franchise and then get, I watch that movie so many times when I was a kid, I will Smith and toes was solution heroes.

So many black comes out.

The first in black comes out one thousand nine ninety seven.

And this was before marvel studios, right?

This was marvel. So this this was exactly marvel was licensing their IP to big movie studios um you know to fox SONY to at a time Warner um who are making these movies big budget movies, a blade one thousand and ninety eight h and then then the first really big one x men two in the year two thousand spider man in two thousand and two um so again, marvels not making them these movies themselves but obviously is no that no collectively these movies are making billions of dollars .

really starting to take off yeah and it's it's interesting to think about like there had been superhero movies for decades, right? I mean, like we had whole franchise of batman movies.

It's not like.

that's right yeah oh, access for I who can forget it's like we were renewed this but you know like in the world today of like or even two thousand and nine iron man grows five hundred and eighty million dollars. IT was a marvel studios was like, IT wasn't that scale IT IT wasn't like every single blockbuster at at the box office is going to be a superhero film. So it's interesting to think about like what what changed that that like other and cause these superhuman movies to become more more a sure thing for the studios to make yeah.

I know. And also kind of coincided. Well, I think the the superman in the batman movies were always, at least I remember, kind of growing up. Thank you.

Well, oh yeah, I remember the about me movies what I did but um but I think he was just those two were like the big frantisek, the D. C. Frantisek and and D C.

I believe not always, but for certainly through all of these decades was owned by time Warner and still IT is so they were part of a big major media company and had the resources to make these um you know big budget movies. Uh where's marvel? I don't think ever did until uh until until this era. And so you see these superhero franchises that had been obvious ly at huge following but weren't like the mainstream you know um to the extent that superman and batman were now get these big film slates, I think the other thing that was happening is this is sort of the dawn and and I don't know how much is one LED to the other um sort of the dawn of like sequoias in in hollywood yes and super here on movies of course frantisek let themselves so well to equals yeah yeah very .

true I me as as ever sense you know one thousand nine hundred and thirty nine, every single one of these uh this comic book franchise has issue after issue after after issue.

They are serious yeah so it's perfect for, you know, in a world where hollywood needs dependable franchise to make equals you know what Better plays select .

to economic books .

yeah yeah so in two thousand five after you know few days, uh huge successful movies based on marvel IP have come out from other studios. Marvel actually takes a really ambitious step um to start marvel studios to make movies themselves and um so they read five hundred and twenty five million in debt and created facility from maryland. Ch um ironically like a right before mary linch went bank pt in the in the in the recession um but they they get a uh uh a film financing uh vehicle from from marrow uh and create the really the first kind of major independent hollywood studios since kind of the dream work era. This was this was a pretty big deal.

Yeah and it's interesting to think that this was something they just sort of started and ultimately became like very quickly the largest part of .

their business. absolutely. So uh and and also interesting um you know they sort of when they announced this, uh this was in two thousand five two thousand and six when they are getting this set up. Um they announced that the plan was that they were gonna release individual films. You gna be individual franchises, iron man, and the whole quarter with the first two movies that they end up releasing um creep these franchises es and then they were gonna tie them all together into a cross over film .

so which obviously .

yes exactly um but but that was the plane all along and interesting that um disney really know has been hands off and let them let them Operate that plan um yeah .

yeah and thinking about so um in in making this move in starting the studio. They're already licensed doubt so many their characters to the other studios for uh to make films and distribute.

And so when you think really their top tier characters.

right right so I list the um the characters that were no longer eligible for marvel to make their own films around spiderman, the fantastic four, silver surfer, wolverine, the rest of the x men dead pool uh yeah others do you think about like, wow okay so all those are off limits. And what theyve got is exported like the second tear at the time, like we don't think of them now because they're huge, gigantic blockbuster wins. But like thor, how iron man like like that's who they're left to work with and then that's what they .

create the studio around yeah uh totally and an I man was really, really the best that they had available and that was the first film uh, that they made and came out in early two thousand and eight and ended up being robot tour to force from robber danny junior. I remember seeing in theatres such a great movie. The original man.

absolutely. And actually the year before that was o nine and two thousand and eight, they at the hook, which which was about half of of what some growth, but that was they .

actually book came out to doesn't IT, uh, uh, they came out like, uh, they made them concurrently. Uh, I remain actually came out a couple months before hook, I believe, uh, at least cording to wikipedia um and which is always right and yeah I man made five hundred eighty five million ah at the box off as so six hundred million which is uh compared to films like the avengers and uh what hair men three uh and frozen another disney movies and certainly the force awakens that make a billion or even close to two billion that doesn't sound like a lot at at the time. There was a huge amount even though is only .

a few years ago .

beginning of an era beginning really beginning of the superhero .

black butera ah that's right in its sort of signals to like any potential buyer of of marvel stock. Like there is a new way to value this company and it's based on these numbers and there's nothing to do with any the other lines of business there in yep.

Um so as as you mentioned, uh the hole comes out shortly there after and isn't the huge success that iron man is but it's it's a pretty, pretty successful movie makes uh just under three hundred million um and is very successful and kind of proves that audiences are interested in this kind of content and will come out even for you know non top to your characters if you can make good movies. So the next year in two thousand nine uh, before I believe they were I believe they were intended to be five films on the slate that um that marvel did with mary lunch uh but before any of the following ones can come out August thirty first two thousand nine black weer deal babbie's and and what disney company announced that they're going to require marble for four point two billion dollars um which was kind of lot when you think back to um when person by disney granted IT was in in the late eighties but had uh note person bought IT from in the ladies from new world entertainment IT was less than one hundred million so yeah here we are sort of twenty years later um and we're talking four .

point two billion yep yep and it's interesting that like um it's there was not a single new piece of intellectual property that mattered between those years. Yeah like all those characters had already been created and IT was really all about a new way leverage that same intellectual property that made IT what forty times forty plus times more .

valuable over that spent a time yeah super interesting and IT really was IT .

really was the films yeah yeah. And to put place of kind like um for listeners out there, a twenty nine percent premium um was what was paid for for marvel above what I was currently trading at. So while there was some scrutiny like oh my god, that's a huge of four point two four billion.

That's a huge ridiculous acquisition. It's not that much more than what the public markets were valuing IT at. And IT actually is pretty much in line with other public company acquisitions that we've covered on the show.

And uh, another thing is important to think about about this deal um that I think other folks hood written about IT now and talked about IT a kind of context of a little bit this was in the middle of the recession um and so this was like perfect timing by by egg and disney to buy marble um because people were worried at this point you know are and we were talking about box office as number a minute ago. They were certainly depressed by the fact that we were in middle of recession and like people didn't have nearly as much disposable income as they were used to have an earlier in the decade.

That's right. And for even more perspective, IT was just over a half the Price that they paid three years before for pixar. So if you kind of look look at this trend, they hadn't had a quiet lucas film, but let's simplify disney to A A content and distribution company and they're basically out buying content. Um you know that the part part two of their the second big pickup that they made here, they signalled that they were going to do this before. This is igor strategy and IT clearly had been working with pixar.

yes. And I mean the the pigs are famously a bad bigger. The first board meeting, a CEO, which was IT, is like second day on the job uh he proposed to the board that he wanted to wanted to buy pixar and this was clearly how he kind of set the tone for his his ten year C E O and his um you know certainly hard to argue with his execution across the three of these companies.

Right right? And if you're disney, you're looking around and it's you know two thousand and five like all the valuable content that you don't own. That's like some of its in universal and some of its like there's little pieces and pockets elsewhere. But the three other big powerhouses are a lucas film, pixar and and marvel and yeah you know and over what how many years uh two thousand six hundred twenty twelve so over six years roll up well also .

keeping with the team of the shower half of the team of the show now in in acquisitions. Um you know I G took over A C O disney uh right after there had been this um this hostile take over attempt to of disney that actually come cast uh right before I ga became C E O uh launched a hostile take over attempt to train by disney. Of course later five or six years later they would end up acquiring nbc but this was like I I have to imagine that um living through that the disney board and but the very kind of entering his ten year um thinking about seeing consolidation in the media industry coming and decided very actively deciding to be a consolidate tour as opposed to a consolidate tea looking around to see what they could die yeah and .

you look at the ah what that aggressive strategy helps them do I mean, who is competing with disney in two thousand five and who's even close to competing with them now? Mean I think that that .

just totally worked yeah um and um interestingly um I actually in press quote at the time of the marvel deal um said marvels brand and its treasures of content will now benefit from our extraordinary reach. We paid a Price that reflects the value they've created and the value we can create as one company is a full Price but a fair Price. And absolutely we talked about this and the pigs are episode and especially in the lucas film episode but um you know disney core confidences y in what they have that the other media companies don't have, is that fly we all that you know that what does he drew you back in the early days in the company, which is the ability to take great I P franchisees like star wars a, like pixar, like like marvel and and pump ed them through the fly will and realize much more value out of IT than they put on their own.

That's right. And old school disney was creating IT, but new school disney has has pretty efficiently figured out how to bring in content they don't create into that flow. We'll do. And I think the fourth piece of this stall that we even talked about yet because IT wasn't an acquisition, is the tremendous growth of the sp n business inside of disney. And I think the four of those businesses together really, really account for a lot of the the growth and the dramatic change and share Price between them and today.

Yeah and it's interesting too. I mean, uh I am not about uh E S P N in this context, but you bringing IT up and in the context the fire will.

I guess actually disney was an acquisition .

that was just a long time ago. A P M. IT was do a pretty complicated history that might be a fun to show to do sometime yeah P N as a super interesting corporate history um but uh the court S P N business I think in a lot of IT, I think I was totally the gold leg for many, many years for disney.

But um I think is much more chAllenge today then IT was a few years ago at cord cutting and you lend your television watching being much less of the thing. And obvious ly sports center, still popular among many people. I used to watch sports center every day pretty multiple times today, and I have been watched in years now. Um no, I still watch clipsed on snaps to p but but you see this this strategy and especially round film with S P N two now with thirty for thirty and some of the people they're making there, you think about the only documentary and how great ambitious that was. You're .

totally getting to my tech themes. We'll stop that.

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Yeah, let's but first is to wrap up quickly on on the the aftermath of the acquisition. So as we mentioned, parameter remains the C E O of the company. The company stays in new york. Um so it's a fully autonomous subsidiary within disney. Um and and like we said, basically theyve just continued to execute on the plan that they drew up in two thousand five when they launched marvel studios and producing .

dramatically more like there they're scale now. I mean, they head like five or six in the pipeline when they were acquired. And I think you look at the th Epace o f n ew m arvel m ovies c oming o ut. A new marvel movie is plan through the next few few years like they're they're not let up.

yep. And and even if there's much more value to be realized from the company in the future, but even since the acquisition in two thousand nine and the marble movies have generated almost nine billion dollars in revenue in box office revenue, which is crazy now ah that doesn't necessarily equal certainly doesn't equal profits and profits for movies are harder to get to. Um then then pure revenue, we we can get that data.

And I think marvel estimated profit margins, at least in the first eight films release, actually pulled the step under disney where about a twenty three percent .

profit margin okay. So he call roughly sorted two billion ish, slightly more than two billion uh, in profit so far from the movie so that have the purchase press right there and that's just the box office, you know, not the. Not the home video, not the merchandizing, not the theme parks, you know, all that stuff so .

totally and I grabbed another state. I think this is, I think this is from yeah fortune ticket in two thousand fifteen. One analyst that by the time I was finished with the avenger iron man three and kept in amErica the sequel, disney probably paid for the acquisition of the entire company. So I think it's it's pretty quick payback period there. And I think looking at twenty two percent profit margin and you look at the Price tag of production now on these films, pretty expensive to make these huge block busters.

Yes, you need two hundred million.

hundred fifty .

million yeah well, well, we should delay some of the discussion to tell you render our final grade but right right. Um let's let's jump into a category so as a reminder, we um picks out which was our very first episode on the show. We actually we said he was a business line and the lucas film, we said IT was a product. So what is what is marble?

yes. So I am going to for shadow my my tech teams and my conclusion a little bit here. But I think IT was two things. One is a business line. They bought the um the business line of making the films.

They were able to scale that um you know we talked about kind of paying back the acquisition and in a shorter amount of time, the studio itself. But ultimately, they have this asset in purpuric of the characters. And unlike, in my opinion, the reason why we didn't call well, we didn't have asset yet. This this category ation for for pixar, but um pixar sequel don't hold up as well as the serialization that comic good characters lend themselves too. So unlike a lot of sequence als which fatigue very often, there's these like few in the world, the James bonds of the world that um that don't get tired because they're able to to keep reinventing IT or the the the stories are OK being formulaic so you kind of can't keep experiencing the same um the same tight plot line over over again. Super heroes let themselves do that and the instructions al property um that i'm calling separate from the business line, the intellectual property that is these characters are you know there a true asset in purpose?

Ity yeah interesting. Um uh fortunately one of my tech teams a little bit too but um I was going to be a lazy on this one and say, oh yeah totally a product um just like lucas film and being know I think we called look this film the the sort of justice gets pumped through the pipeline of the fly wheel um and and I thought that this is too I I still think IT is um but it's an interesting inside on the the serial serial as serial as ability of superheroes and the assets of superheroes versus a pixar which as greatest pixar is um i'm not excited for another .

toy story yeah exactly like .

there's it's kind of a harder business in a lot of ways because you're you're betting on the capability of the team to keep producing new original great stuff.

right? Take your assets appreciate .

faster well or there is no I mean they do do equals with pigs are but um but that's not the core what IT is. It's like you have to keep generating new, keep pushing the rock up the hill east time.

right? And actually it's funny if you look at the I was I was about to make the point that um um IT is more expensive to create A A pixar film because you don't have the same responsibility that you do from the end you super hero film um IT actually is the the the profit margin on on pics, our films are higher. So to kind of combat the the um point I just made, twenty three percent um uh profit margins for marable, twenty seven percent profit margins for pixar. And you know render farms and illustrators are expensive, but not as expensive as flying helicopters into buildings.

Yeah and well now the picks are pays actors a lot too for their voice. But yeah I would probably in aggregate, in terms of money paid, the actors pick our movies, I would have to imagine less than a marvel movie. Yeah.

yeah, I would think interesting.

yeah. Like I like the asset categorization. I mean, I think this is definitely also duce to pump through disney fly wheel. But this is a different kind of asset then certainly pixar and only thinking a lot of star wars too. Star wars is kind star telling.

Ly, I called the star wars lucas film, but yeah, but IT is star wars, right? Where is marvel? Um is many of these franchise.

right? right? right? Oh yeah, that's a great point. Is like if you look at the um the four billion dollar Price tag for luis film in the four point two billion dollar Price tag for um more for like think many more characters, it's like eight hundred plus characters are in five hundred plus at the time of acquisition in the marvel universe and maybe fifty of which are recognizable by the american public. And you look at look at star wars. And I don't think lucas film was sort of looking valuing themselves based on all those deep characters and what we're seeing with the the disney powerhouses, they're sort of trying to make the star wars universe more serialized and more um kind of desperate with all these different stories that they're trying to tell that aren't with our our our favor characters and not be really interested to see, not how rogue one does because I think that that's going to be there's so much pent up to for star wars that like I want to see how the third, fourth non core star wars story does and if if this, he will be successful in kind of creating a this sort of cereal blockbusters out of lucas film characters the same way they're been able to with with marble characters.

It's interesting to think about to think about these three acquisitions, which are obviously all fall within the same with broad theme for disney but on a kinds spectrum from pigs are where there are is so much about the people and the creative process and creating individual new a new creative works uh to the kinds lucas film sorted in the middle where it's about the Frank and the one franchise of star wars um and the cats around that is uh well before the acquisition was very long cycles between any sort of new star wars content that would come out much fast right of decades yeah look .

as film .

is sort of about the people you know I mean obvious ly George lucas and and some great leadership at luis film um but but also about the franchise and then and then you've got marvel at the other end of the spectrum which has had great business leadership, especially under as um as a pro matter but um you know all of the all of the talent that comes into the the making, the movies and even the artist of the comic books. Like it's all it's all three party, you know it's not it's not like it's kind of it's very different from pixar.

Yeah great point.

Actually move on to what would .

happen others otherwise. Yeah so um I think marvel was going to required like we are an era of consolidation where distribution was buying content. And I don't know who also that would have been twenty century fox SONY. Um seems like actually there there's a lot of places they could have landed. It's kind of shocking to me that with the picks are picked up in two thousand six, that someone else didn't see this coming and try to make a play for IT sooner that maybe other people, other studios or I guess .

the I wonder if the other studios maybe um were a little bit lazy and they're thinking because they were kind of having their cake and eating IT too, right and that they were getting marvel movies in in spider man and x man um without having to actually buy the company um uh and IT was only when uh when marvel started making movies on their own that IT became a really valuable company as itself.

Yeah that's true and I really hadn't been long since since marble studios was around. The shocking thing is like, how did no one else I mean, actually here's here's kind of an interesting question. If you're twenty a century fox or if you are SONY pictures and you see um let's say you can see the future and know that disney was going to do this, do you try to do IT soor like the people? A not think disney was going to do IT or b not care that disney was going to do IT?

Yeah well here's an interesting thing that we we haven't talked about yet so far. But um on the surface of this actually wasn't the most natural fit with disney uh which actually I think is one of the reasons why bavaria and disney really wanted to do this acquisition um but disney was always know kind like princesses and the animated movies and and the pigs are which definitely fit into that mold.

Um and you know in terms of the strategy with children, you know super gender stereotypes here, but because the way a lot of at least historically, a lot of people at disney have thought about this. And in the immediate industry, the disney like owned the little girl, you know but they didn't didn't and little boys too but like they didn't have much to much to a much less extend and this was disney play for uh for little boys too um I mean, what's what's more attractive to little boys than superheroes in total? You know, old school gender stereotyped ways. Speaking as a massive frozen .

fan myself, know I still have been seen IT. Ah.

you gotta change that is so good.

Now I know, as I admitted, picks our fan boy, I really .

should not.

Not that it's picks up, but like you to see how that enter the rest .

of disney umbrella yeah and it's interesting to think to I can't imagine this had that much impact on parameter and marvel because I was there are much more business executives than sort of found their creative types um but anger and disney have developed this reputation now with these three acquisitions as like excEllent stores of of franchises that kind of like the warn buffets .

of great of creative in in the pixar animation. We are the I think IT was the pixar no in the lucas film acquisition we compared IT to facebook that that did. He was really good at leaving there.

There are sort of desperate in create direct, which again a little bit was why he didn't on the surface that was wow, disney buying marble like marvel much idea than disney. But yes, we've let to be totally separate um but this was you know in the lucas film acquisition using George lucas I said to buy beggar before he saw like if i'm going to sell IT, I would only sell this to you into disney and and Steve jobs state right like it's hard to imagine uh, pixar and jobs selling that anybody except .

is right right yet so two two other questions here then for you that I would pose one, is there a fourth like will we see disney make a play for another large piece of content? And i've been sort of iraq king my brain to think who that could be or who is the content that we don't think of as the big content yet is the up and comer.

And then two, well, you're you're just one knowing on that, I generalize this to uh, distribution combine combine distribution content company buying more content and pumping IT through their distribution. Do we see that in other verticals? Like are we seeing that in tech outside of entertainment or any other forms of content being bought by um distribution plus content companies?

Interesting questions. Well, on the second I mean to a certain next stand, I think we see a little bit with facebook in an instagram. I mean, it's very different like I think instagram would have grown hugely on its own um but no question that on the ad sale side of the house being able to just plug in facebook ad sales and the instagram was hugely valuable there.

Um on the first question, you know i'm not close enough to uh have a super informed opinion on on that front. But one thing that just popped into my mind, especially because the company is struggling in IT. Now what about the intendo?

嗯， boy, that's like the you're right that that is like the another huge treasure trow of IP that yeah as we saw with with poke on go, I mean you you take an existing piece of technology or relatively existing with niantic c and and slap highly valuable IP like intendo s on top of that you and create something you know that the world goes crazy for. We can have debate on how .

lasting that is but certainly the I P that intent deo has in in mario and elda um and some even I mean there are a lot of ways like the paris to marble are very similar you've letter known stuff like kid tics and when then you get poke on I was really is a super well known man. What would if if all of that IP were liberated from the chAllenged business model of like gaming console hardware sales? Ah yeah what what can you do that and .

what this is interesting, like almost all of this, probably excluding pixar. But this might pixar is a little kind of an older company too. Like what I P is super valuable and a major part of the american consciousness and new because all this is like, you know, buying the star wars stuff from seventy seven and buying the marvel stuff from the forties and fifties and buy an intendo from the eighties. Like work where's you know like there's twenty tens, mario. And like does that exist in the era of the internet and short attention spans and social media where um individuals are their own content creators and content is short lived?

Yeah well, maybe IT lives on .

facebook. Yeah and it's like it's unna .

like the .

maybe disney buying twitter. yeah. And then that sort of fell through probably because of pricing issues like none of these platforms on the IP. There's like shared licenses between the the tweet and the um betwen twitter and the originator of the content. But like there is hard to think of new intellectual property that everyone cares about, like everyone cares about their little filter bubble or .

I think about or or like twitch to all right like um right all the big um big entertainment franchises of the last five years. Certainly I think you would you know there they're s right? They're not they are not I P themselves. They are platforms.

Yeah yeah exactly. Take all the all the major value in the recent stuff is the platform on which massive distributed to democratized I P is created distributed, not not actually being in content powerhouse yeah .

other than you .

know actually we are seeing this with netflix, right? Netflix, amazon, they they have the distribution and we're previously licensing the content and now we're creating content in house. And that's a pretty good allegory for sort of question number two there of who else is is is doing this these days outside of disney. And I guess, network isn't necessarily buying up by their companies that have content, but we are seeing heavy investment by the people that have the pipes in creating their own content.

Yeah well, actually uh you know um there are plenty of I P Francis es out there being created and and great ones I should have thought of this. Jen and I with my parents over thanksgiving weekend went to see uh fantastic bees and where to find them uh we loved um the a Harry potter of course another .

yeah totally that's last couple decades .

or two here or at least Younger than some of these other french .

is right the disney .

yeah yeah maybe that's not a fair but also you know that was really created um internet but certainly preval media and you know the first Harry potter uh I don't think JK ring or Harry could have a peared red into the future and seeing the world that .

we'd live in today .

yeah absolutely not in fact feet but like but I both got iphone seven recently and uh one of the I don't use the time but just one of the sort of delightful feature on enjoy discovering as the live photos of the Harry potter photos yeah right.

It's kind of for those of us who are on the off cycle or just the on cycle and didn't have the six I just discovered red, my photos two and you're like, these are these are weird when I send them to people .

and make much context.

Yeah, yeah.

alright. Should we move in the tech names?

Yeah, totally. So the one i've got one that's based on a stat. So of the top ten grossing films in one thousand and eighty one, seven of them were original content radars, the last dark, our third stripes cannot ball run, Cherry ts of fire, four seasons time bandits.

You've got one that's an adaptation on golden pond. And then you have two singles, superman two and for your eyes only fast for the twenty eleven. So um three decades later. I'll reduce the the top ten grossing films, Harry potter, eight, transformers three, twilight saga for hang over part two parts, the carribean, four fast, five cars, two rise of the planet of the apes, thor, captain america. So that is eight equals two adaptations and zero original pieces .

of yeah and it's .

fascinating to see the shift of a the the playground that is the movie studio, the movie theater, that the whole all of hollywood as a feature film production, the creativity and originality is, is, is not happening there anymore. It's happening elsewhere and we're in this era right now simultaneously of of a great TV rena sant. There's every every season there's like brilliant dramas on with hollywood have claimed actors and best in class writing. And um you know there was mad man, there was the seas like rating up to this and all i'll save there's one i'm watching that's my car about that I don't want I mention yet but like all of the experimental has moved to cheaper things T V or you know youtube bar or social media and and the hollywood is is the way to go and make a billion dollars off of of sure things because we're going to go poor couple hundred million in. You want to get big, big money out and you're .

not willing to take a chance. It's interesting, I think that the question for me that that bags and i've been thinking about you can starting to do the research. And as we've been doing the episode for all the um the justifiable admiration uh deserve an admiration that I think we're keeping on marvel and disney here.

I think there is one really key existential risk and that, you know, if and when the push back this dynamic comes from the public. You know how many eagle and people been asking this for years? Maybe it'll never come, but how many equals can we take?

You know how long a superhero movie is going to be in vogue? You know, is this just a very extended fad cycle that we've been living in, like in in ten, twenty, thirty years when we look back on this and feel like men? I was like, leader suits. Like, remember the super here on movie days? You know, and I just wonder, you know like I don't know, I don't never get answer to IT.

Well, yeah if it's I guess it's interesting like if if this is like a permanent thing, what changed in the world that um like what piece of technology or what's a eal Normal shift or something change that made IT so that if we were well, maybe it's this may be it's we're actually capable of of creating something that resonate so strongly with with people's mysta.

Legia and and I were actually capable of creating multiple billions of dollars of revenue on a single film. Therefore, we're going to spend all the money to produce that thing. Therefore, we're not going to take chances, yes. And producing .

those films costs hundreds of millions of that, right?

So it's like maybe the technology got good enough both in distribution and production where IT was possible to spend that much money on making a film and IT was possible to spend um to or to earn that much from instant global distribution that know we actually we actually are seeing IT come to fruition and IT was only technology limited before .

yeah and and the five will like disney of you know consuming products and team parks. You know when you're investing in nip as something as an entity like disney, like um that is a huge investment, you really can't um and and and they do take recent you know have failed on stuff like what was that when they had a couple of live action movies, they were total flops so like right around the time that they bow marvel.

which is interesting and taking big risks but they're flopping .

yeah but you can afford to have too many of those lots right?

I wonder if like you you know you get a few of those that are big grass, they're flopping and then you just get scared away from doing IT. Yeah and you and you start pushing out your your ah you're effectively prototyping down and a cheaper, cheaper distribution .

yeah it's interesting though. I mean, like where you know, as you said, so there's so much innovation and sons going on in the television format right now. Is there or will there be something similar in the you know film format? I mean, obviously is independent film and there's lots of innovation going on. Um but uh but not at the not at the of mashed and scale that something like netflix and amazon has allowed risk to be taken in television and still have the ability to a channel to distribute that to a mass audience. Yeah, it's interesting.

I think sort of the same thing has happened with music, where there's like a psychological thing, where we love the things that other people love and we all love having the same darkling and the same heroes, and like the same sort of music feels good to us that feels good to the other people around us.

And with global distribution happening so quickly and so cheaply, um you you have the ability to achieve much more shameless and have much more people agree on what the best thing is. And at the we'd like to think that we have an dependent taste, but a lot of the time were sort of just like looking to hear from people, I go, what's the best? Who's the tailor? Swift right now and that's why we're getting so many.

If you were the there didn't except like the beetles, like there was never like the bionic, the Taylor swift, they were much more distributed, and the roman at war, people that could make IT big. And now there's like this echo of people that you can count on one hand, who are like these super phenomenon, phenomenon. And I think the same thing sort of happening in movies.

yes, this totally leads leads super well in the my tech team, which is someone i've been thinking about. I've been reading uh, this great book came out the came out last year, I think a couple years ago, called syb ens um by by this guy you've all know a uh horry and it's a great book um and it's about it's sort of A A biological time history of homosapien s uh and how A R A R species came to take over the world basically even though there were there were there are no longer but there were other uh species of the genus mo uh me underthought and many others uh but h homeless a bans started quote and quote one and you you could argue now are destroying the planet， but certainly taken over the planet um what like actually different tia's us from other homes, species uh and from the rest of the animals ingham and he argues that the the primary thing is our ability to uh believe in create and believe in fictions um because of which are like um you know a reality is like there is a lion over there run you know but a fiction is like there is a company and uh there is a uh story and a you know this uh um we are you know the internet is a fiction. Right but like it's not it's not real, it's very real but it's not something that any other uh species could comply. Happened ah and so that that kind of makes me think about like I P and uh exactly what we were just talking about like as the internet spread communication uh instantly and globally, I know are we seeing these major black west franchises just continue to consolidate because of the power of these questions?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great point. Heady stuff for marble. Highly, highly recommend the book. My a week, but one but co, you want to create IT.

let's do IT. So an interesting stat that I found and I was looking through all this, if you look at the first eight films from marvel post acquisition and the first eight from pixar post acquisition, um marvel made about six billion dollars gross. This are made about four and a half um cost of creating them are fairly similar.

The box office profit from marvel is about one point two billion versus six hundred million. So this is like the interesting thing where marvel was phenomenal ally Better at the box office. But over the long term, marvel's home video sales are about four hundred million and pixels are one point six billion. And for there's an interesting thing that happens where with pixar films, like people get attached to that one character in that one story line and they just continue to watch and buy that film forever.

And when you look at the marvel movies, like even just me thinking about, like what would I rather watch toy story three, which like, even though that's a sequel like that has a zone story line that I can remember on, i'm emotionally touched to or like, do I care about owning or even like, you know, buying in, watching again on on a streaming service or from amazon, like iron men too. And you can sort of see like that that these serialization films don't have lasting value, or or nearly as much as as as the pizza once do. And so I went back and listen in a not a plus for pixar and I think that it's fair for me to to say disney, a great acquisition, almost a necessary one.

We will be sitting here saying like your fools not to to buy marvel but um it's an name minus to me, it's it's not as good as as the the pixar acquisition. And I think the characters are our brilliant IP for a long time. I think they're basically r recoup the cost of that, that four billion dollar out way and we'll see what they can do. The character intellectual property because unlike pixar, that that those already created assets on a shell flow just keep um keep creating value for them with with the assets that they have from from marvel from these characters in this actual property, they're going to have to keep pouring cash in.

get cash out. Yeah um I think we found that same info graphic ah that I was I I I had a copy in my notes. I was um yeah it's interesting too to think about uh, our grading a benchmark throughout this a throughout the life of this .

show an station.

M yeah we said no, I was going to the evolution of our benchmark yeah you know I think instagram was still one of, if not the top on on the bench ber but thank you thinking about to to next and you know I I don't think you can argue that's not the greatest acquisition of all time.

Know when you create a trillion dollars of value top that um but also makes me think a little bit about like the as cool as as much as we love no I P in these fictions and what what I was just talking about in in media movies and these frantick es, the value that you can create in technology is so much more like the leverage is so much higher than yeah you can get from. The media industry, you're really any other industry um you know this this is why technology companies are so valuable. You know thirteen people at instagram can create many, many billions of value you can make. You can make every man three with thirteen people um or or the other team park.

And reiterating something we talked about last episode quarter, facebooks Operating margin went from thirty two percent to forty five percent on the incredibly large revenues that they have as a mature company like technology. That is why technology companies are worth so much and you just can't pull ever to make the twenty three percent uh profit margin from from these marvel films into something you know one point .

five x that um and of course there's a dark side of that too is we also talk the facebook you know episode you know you don't create nearly as many obs when you pulling that technology level but anyway we're not track here. Um I agree on a minus.

And I think about IT in terms of lasting impact to disney and sustainable value creation within disney and thinking about these three franchise, these three companies that they acquire pigs are you know marvel lucas film. Um I think in a lot ways there is the most risk of the future value of marvel. Um and it's it's in in a will superhero because it's A A portfolio of superhero franchise es.

Will superhero franchises continue to be as popular? You know I think so we've been popular for one hundred years but how popular or will they be? Um you're totally index to that uh lucas film is all about star wars um you know and star wars uh you could argue you have even more risk index to that.

However, you can probably also argue IT is one of, if not the single most uh a beloved franchise in the entire world of all time. Um so they were buying something very specific there. Um but then pixar really was you know they were buying A A process and uh a um both people in a process uh that they've applied to their whole film and creative business. Um so I think for uh both the reasons you said ban and and those reasons I think pigs are needs to be rated higher. Then then marble in this disney tro gy, i'm going to go, i'm going to go a minus for marble.

Go on 悟空。

One .

real quick follow up.

A spectacles have launched and people think they are cool. Love any .

listeners have them would love. Love to hear your your comments and slack or email us .

at acquired f emails at com.

No, no. And my god, evan speaker is product marketing genius. I think. Launching them, what, in a custom vending machine, na, and then that going away, of course, selling out immediately and having a huge line and then popping one up.

Where was the one in the kind of like great planes area, a tosa, I think. And then on the grand kenyon. And then once people are saying, where's IT onna be next?

Then having a store in new york city that just has the vending machine in the back of the store. And like, i'd just wonder what's next. And I maybe maybe there's even something before this the show goes life .

but les in space .

yeah like doing everything right. Like you can totally see other companies being like, okay, we've to work with retailers to make sure this enough of these things available. And it's totally just like demand generation at its fine est and brand building. And also the fact that like from all accounts, the product is right and has like a good use case. And people like enjoy using IT and say it's good like talk about controlling the message and really giving people confidence that, that they're onto something when they're about to go on the I P O road show.

Yeah super goal. I came with the DRAM um are IT hottie. Uh this is less of a hot take and more a uh more of congratulation to friends. But uh, high tower announced uh, very, very recently, if not today, as we're recordings this um which is started in new york with lots of seattle routes. They are emerging with V T, S, in a deal valued at three hundred million.

Yeah huge congratulations to to downed the santis and that whole team um really like really cool story start up weekend guys got together actually to gel as a team at to start up weekend moved to new york when that was very clear that um to be in commercial real stay they they should be in new york really just made the product market fit quickly built a great team and know this is not the end it's that is reported estimated three hundred million dollar merger with their competitor and the the wall street general article that will link to .

like is that kind .

of to to the yellow truly ever but awesome awesome awesome .

to see yeah did you happen for that company yeah and great to have a start up weekend alone zo start up weekends play the um as organization and and events such a huge al and bend in my lives and careers and then uh whether it's Robert come getting started that started up weekend there uh been been meeting while leading uh indirectly to us meeting and um yeah yes .

i've got a really gushing blog post .

about how much how awesome .

start up weekend that is on my blog at some point if anybody actually wants to check that out. But should we move on .

a car outs .

carbet cool so uh, there is going to be some people who are like, I knew this is what he was going to say um earlier on when I was hitting with this but I am so in the west world HBO show based on a Michael craton book, which then got turn to do a movie in the seventies with the old or as a cowboy. And I don't want to say too much about IT now, but if you if you like the concept of where is A I and robotics going and you like really high production value entertainment, it's created by jj a bms and and JoNathan nolan who of course worked on all the recent batman films and um the prestige and ah yeah what a great films um you gotto watch IT it's so good and I just signed up for HBO now and it's like trivially cheap and you get a month three so um highly recommended technology .

technology and super girls on one um my car is out for the week uh real quick. Uh I I don't think i've done this before uh on the show um but I should have because I love IT vivo APP called overdrive which is uh which is a way to you digitally um do an up and through your kindle connect with your local library and uh borrow books, a borough e books and audio books from your local library and then read them on your kindle or on your smart phone um and listen to the audio books uh for free with your library membership and H I actually had started using this a few years ago. Kind of forgot about IT and picked IT up again earlier this year and it's just like, uh, removing that little bit of friction you know not that he books are very expensive, but R O books are um yeah i'm reading like four five times as many books as I use TV because of that. So highly recommend IT go sign up at your local library, support your libraries and use over time.

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And perhaps most importantly, your security reviews are now real time instead of static, so you can monitor and share with your customers and partners to give them .

added confidence. So whether or a large enterprise and your company is ready to automate complaints and streamline security reviews like vana seven thousand customers around the globe, i'd go back to making your beer taste Better, head on over to vent a outcomes lush required and just tell them that been in David sent you and thanks to friend of the show, Christina anta CEO, all acquired listeners get a thousand dollars of free credit vet .

outcome slash acquired, right? That's how we've got. If if you want to subscribe and you wanna hear more, you can subscribe from your favorite ite podcast client.

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We ll see you next time.

truth. 哼。