Purchased for $4 billion, Disney’s superhero factory is now worth more than $50 billion.



For Disney CEO Bob Chapek, this weekend’s debut of&nbsp;Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings&nbsp;is a roll of the dice. It’s the first Marvel film to open on the normally anemic Labor Day weekend and its central character, a kung fu master in the mold of ‘70s martial arts icon Bruce Lee, is little-known. Its exclusive theatrical release, which Chapek himself called an “interesting experiment,” comes as Covid cases continue to spike.&nbsp;



The Chinese government has yet to approve the film for distribution in the world’s largest movie market, raising the stakes for Chapek.&nbsp;But Disney has built up quite a bit of wiggle room with its control of the 80-year-old comic-book publisher that writer Stan Lee and illustrator Jack Kirby put on the map: Purchased in 2009 for just $4 billion,&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;estimates the company is now worth almost $53 billion, or about 16% of Disney’s market value.



Not a bad return on an investment that few said would ever pay off.&nbsp;



“People didn’t fully understand and appreciate the franchise potential of the genre like we did,” says Tom Staggs, Disney&#8217;s former chief financial officer who helped lead the acquisition. “We were able to buy it because the industry didn’t totally get it either.”



Keeping that value may be one of the biggest challenges facing Chapek, the former theme park and consumer products executive who took over as CEO last year. He has already rankled Hollywood by taking on Scarlet Johansson,<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnchmielewski/2021/07/30/how-much-scarlett-johansson-can-win-if-she-triumphs-in-disney-lawsuit/">&nbsp;one of Marvel’s biggest stars&nbsp;</a>, over compensation tied to the simultaneous theatrical and streaming release of&nbsp;Black Widow,&nbsp;including the contentious decision to disclose her&nbsp;$20 million salary for the role. That strategy also reportedly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-disney-and-scarlett-johansson-reached-the-point-of-no-return-11630688765" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">rankled Marvel Chief Creative Officer Kevin Feige</a>, who didn’t want to see the film downgraded to home streaming.



Shang-Chi&nbsp;presented a different set of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/opinion/asian-americans-superheroes-shang-chi.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">challenges for the filmmakers</a>&nbsp;— knocking down problematic Asian stereotypes in the comic that may explain why&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/02/shang-chi-doesnt-have-a-release-date-in-china-why-thats-a-big-deal.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">China has yet to set a release date.&nbsp;</a>The performance of&nbsp;Shang-Chi&nbsp;will influence how Disney distributes the next Marvel installment,&nbsp;Eternals,&nbsp;due out Nov. 5.&nbsp; It may well determine whether the company can adhere to its carefully choreographed schedule of Marvel stories, intended first to debut in theaters, then expanded on TV.



It was that kind of calculated control that turne a lean, independent studio operating above a Mercedes Benz dealership in Beverly Hills into the beating heart of the world’s biggest entertainment company. Twenty-four Marvel titles collectively grossed $21.9 billion in Disney’s hands, making it bigger than Bond, more potent than Potter and massive compared to The Fast And The Furious. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-08-at-10.29.47-1024x540.png" alt="" class="wp-image-52446" width="668" height="351" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-08-at-10.29.47-1024x540.png 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-08-at-10.29.47-300x158.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-08-at-10.29.47-768x405.png 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Screenshot-2021-09-08-at-10.29.47.png 1366w" sizes="(max-width: 668px) 100vw, 668px" /></figure></div>



It’s also far better than&nbsp;Star Wars&nbsp;which Disney bought with its $4 billion purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012, delivering box office sales of just $6 billion on the five films it produced. Its $7.4 billion acquisition of Pixar in 2006 also pales, with the 21 Disney-owned films generating ticket sales of $14.4 billion. Marvel, says Comscore media analyst Paul Dergarabedian, is easily the most successful film franchise in history.&nbsp;



Here’s a look at Marvel by the numbers.



FILM — Nearly $6 billion



No. 1 Marvel Film: Avengers: Endgame, $2.8 billion



Marvel superheroes have been a key piece of Walt Disney box office dominance in recent&nbsp; years, giving the studio the two biggest movies of 2018 —&nbsp;Avengers: Infinity War&nbsp;and&nbsp;Black Panther&nbsp;— and one of the highest-grossing films of all time —&nbsp;Avengers: Endgame&nbsp;— a year later. Since 2018, Disney has released seven Marvel films that have collectively brought in more than $9.4 billion, according to data from Comscore. That kind of dominance boosts the value of all its other films by driving up the price the company can get from cable TV networks like Starz or streaming services like Netflix to show them. Media analyst Richard Greenfield estimated the value of Disney’s 2012 Netflix deal, which provided the streamer with access to newly released films starting in 2016, would generate $450 million in revenue in its first year.&nbsp;



STREAMING — $40 billion+



Most-Watched Marvel Show: Loki&nbsp;



WandaVision. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.&nbsp;Loki.&nbsp;Marvel shows have helped attract 12.4 million new subscribers to the Disney+ streaming service from April through June, bringing the total to 116 million as of July. The&nbsp;WandaVision&nbsp;debut was a Top 10 hit and which only got bigger with each one of its nine episodes — Nielsen estimates it was viewed by 30.5 million people.&nbsp;The Falcon and the Winter Soldier&nbsp;captured an audience of 28.3 million, Nielsen reported, while&nbsp;Loki, which debuted three months later,&nbsp;drew an even larger 35 million viewers, according to the measurement service. No surprise, ten more Marvel series are coming, including&nbsp;Ms. Marvel,&nbsp;the first Muslim-American superhero;&nbsp;Hawkeye,&nbsp;with actor Jeremy Renner reprising his&nbsp;Avengers’ expert marksman character; and&nbsp;She-Hulk,&nbsp;played by Emmy Award-winning Tatiana Maslany.&nbsp; “The addition of the Marvel content &#8230; is a tremendous catalyst of growth for us,” Chapek told investors in May, noting it built on the success of the Star Wars-inspired original series,&nbsp;The Mandalorian.&nbsp;Marvel’s&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;exceeded $125 million in sales on Disney+, where it premiered on the same day as the film’s theatrical release, sparking a high-profile battle with star Scarlett Johansson over profits that could well set a precedent for how talent is compensated in the streaming era.



CONSUMER PRODUCTS — About $3 billion&nbsp;



No. 1 Selling Marvel Product: Super Heroes Avengers Iron Man Hall of Armor, $45 price



Under Disney, sales of all things Marvel&nbsp; — Spider-Man swim trunks, Hulk bedding, Winter Soldier and Captain America action figures — account for nearly $10 billion in licensing revenue from merchandise sales since 2010, according to&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;calculations. Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter initially viewed toy sales as the profit driver for the company, with the films playing the role of marketing. Today it is making heaps of cash on both. Disney does not disclose what percentage of revenue is attributable to Marvel, though two people with direct knowledge say it’s second only to Disney’s classic characters (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy) in revenue.&nbsp;&nbsp;



THEME PARKS — TBD



First Marvel Attraction: Iron Man Experience, Hong Kong Disneyland



Despite being in Disney hands for more than a decade, it’s still too early to estimate its value to the enterprise — but its six-acre Avengers Campus opened at Disneyland in June and is already drawing crowds who show up to interact with characters such as Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel or Black Panther. One attraction, the&nbsp; Spider-Man Web Slingers ride, sends guests on a 3D mission to combat an infestation of Spider-Bots at the Headquarters, not far from the 2017 remake of the&nbsp;Twilight Zone-inspired Tower of Terror plunge that is now branded the Guardians of the Galaxy &#8211; Mission: Breakout dark ride. “They’ve done it right,” said Dennis Speigel, chief executive of International Theme Park Services consultancy. “There have been huge crowds and waits to get in.” Marvel is making its way around the world. An Ant-Man and The Wasp attraction opened in 2019 in Hong Kong Disneyland. Coming soon: Epcot Center’s Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind indoor roller coaster and an Avengers Campus concept at Disneyland Paris.&nbsp;



METHODOLOGY Disney doesn’t disclose Marvel’s value and analysts who cover the company haven’t done so independently, so to estimate its current value Forbes consulted with former company insiders, industry observers and Wall Street analysts. We used operating income for the film and consumer products units and estimated Marvel’s contribution at 22% — its share of the company’s total box office for the past decade. A 15x multiple was applied. Disney+ was included at the $200 billion valuation assigned by MoffettNathanson’s Michael Nathanson.



By Dawn Chmielewski, Forbes Staff

Gold House Special Screening Of Marvel Studios’ “Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings”

From Avengers To Shang-Chi, What Marvel Studios Is Really Worth To Walt Disney

With&nbsp;F9&nbsp;racing past $500 million worldwide and likely looking at an over/under $160 million domestic cume, it would appear that the&nbsp;Fast &amp; Furious&nbsp;sequel is the latest big tentpole (alongside&nbsp;Godzilla Vs. Kong&nbsp;and&nbsp;A Quiet Place part II) to perform about as well as it might have in a non-Covid environment. It’s not an exact match, mind you, as maybe&nbsp;Godzilla Vs. Kong&nbsp;might have earned $115 million (just above&nbsp;Godzilla: King of the Monsters) while&nbsp;Quiet Place 2&nbsp;would have neared the $188 million cume of&nbsp;A Quiet Place, but it’s close enough that we can argue that&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;might be in a position to be “judged” on non-Covid standards as it opens this weekend.



So, had it opened in May of 2020 sans a global pandemic as expected, what might we have expected to see? Well, the question is whether the Scarlett Johansson-led MCU prequel would have performed like&nbsp;Doctor Strange&nbsp;or&nbsp;Thor: Ragnarok. Consider this a truncated “pessimistic” and “optimistic” box office preview, the kind of thing I used to do with multiple posts three months out from a big movie’s theatrical release. Anyway, the “pessimistic” look would argue that&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;was a prequel set between&nbsp;Civil War&nbsp;and&nbsp;Infinity War&nbsp;featuring a single non-superpowered Avenger who had died in&nbsp;Endgame. Black Widow should have gotten a solo flick years ago, like maybe during the summer of 2017 between&nbsp;Civil War&nbsp;and&nbsp;Infinity War.



That past-due status and Natasha having already sacrificed herself mars the “event movie” nature of this MCU actioner. Ditto the Kate Shortland-directed movie being the MCU film with a solo female director after Patty Jenkins’&nbsp;Wonder Woman,&nbsp;Patty Jenkins’&nbsp;Wonder Woman 1984&nbsp;and Cathy Yan’s&nbsp;Birds of Prey&nbsp;(plus Lexi Alexander’s&nbsp;Punisher War Zone&nbsp;from a pre-MCU era). With no forward narrative momentum and its existence as essentially unfinished business before Phase Four kicks into gear, the MCU brand would do more heavy lifting than usual. Under this scenario, I’d argue an opening weekend between $75 million (Ant-Man and the Wasp) and $88 million (Doctor Strange) and a likely over/under $200 million cume (taking the Disney+ variable into account) for&nbsp;Black Widow.



Conversely, maybe Marvel is Marvel come hell or high water. Black Widow is one of the original Avengers, and her&nbsp;Endgame&nbsp;death may make this more of a curtain call as opposed to what otherwise might have been a palette cleanser between the third&nbsp;Captain America&nbsp;and the third&nbsp;Avengers&nbsp;movie. She may not be as globally popular as Spider-Man or Iron Man, but Black Widow isn’t some newbie being introduced with a conventional origin story. Even absent similar hype levels as&nbsp;Captain Marvel&nbsp;or&nbsp;Black Panther,&nbsp;it would still be the first biggie of the summer back in 2020. That slot which hasn’t yielded an under (inflation-adjusted) opener under $100 million since the first&nbsp;Thor&nbsp;($65 million in 2011/$75 million adjusted).



Under this “Marvel is Marvel, Black Widow is still popular and Scarlett Johansson is still a star” scenario, yeah, an opening on par with&nbsp;Thor: Ragnarok&nbsp;($123 million in 2017 for an eventual $335 million domestic/$854 million worldwide cume) or&nbsp;Spider-Man: Homecoming&nbsp;($116 million/$334 million/$881 million) would be likely. As the first biggie of summer (which can be frontloaded for Marvel… see&nbsp;Civil War&nbsp;and&nbsp;Iron Man 3), we might have expected an over/under $300 million domestic finish. And that would have been just fine for this “stand alone” offering, especially presuming conventional 35/65 domestic/overseas split for a $800 million-plus finish. Heck,&nbsp;Ant-Man 2&nbsp;($216 million domestic and $620 million worldwide)and&nbsp;Doctor Strange&nbsp;($238 million/$677 million)-level grosses would be/will be okay too provided folks like the movie.



So, looking at a Covid curve, and the film being available to lease on Disney+ for $30, we’re still likely looking at a domestic debut between $80 million and $110 million this weekend. It’s possible that the film might have played like&nbsp;Thor 3&nbsp;but will now have to “settle” for playing like&nbsp;Ant-Man 2&nbsp;due to “the current normal,” but I’d argue the above-noted triumphs mean that&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;doesn’t have to be graded on that heavy a Covid curve. Whatever&nbsp;Black Widow&nbsp;would have earned domestically in May 2020 (sans Covid but amid a crowded marketplace) may be close to what it earns in July of 2021 (with Covid but seemingly unopposed), give or take repeat business, strong mid-July competition and/or Disney+.



Will Black Widow be the first $100 million-plus domestic opener since Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in December of 2019? Will it be the first $200 million-plus domestic grosser since Bad Boys for Life in January of 2020? Back in early 2020, I presumed that F9 would be the year’s biggest global grosser (obviously sans Chinese mega-movies at the time) with Black Widow neck-and-neck worldwide with likely domestic champion Wonder Woman 1984. Now, in mid-2020, I’m guessing F9 will rule the summer (among Hollywood flicks) while Spider-Man: No Way Home has the best shot at ruling the year and being the next $1 billion grosser. As for where Black Widow fits into the great (and slow) theatrical recovery of 2021, well, watch this space.



By Scott Mendelson, Forbes Staff

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‘Black Widow’: Pessimistic And Optimistic Box Office Preview

Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman died Friday after a four-year battle with colon cancer, his family <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/chadwickboseman/status/1299530165463199747?s=20" target="_blank">said</a>.



KEY FACTS



Boseman was diagnosed with Stage III colon cancer in 2016 and battled the disease for four years as it progressed to Stage IV.



He died in his home with his wife and children by his side, a statement from his family says.



Boseman had not spoken publicly about his diagnosis, according to the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/5f4352111fdead278da3651b44d311b8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Associated Press</a>.



Boseman starred as Marvel’s first Black superhero in the 2018 blockbuster&nbsp;Black Panther.



He died on Jackie Robinson Day, which is celebrated annually by the MLB, years after portraying the baseball legend opposite Harrison Ford in the 2013 film 42.



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true"><a href="https://t.co/aZ2JzDf5ai">pic.twitter.com/aZ2JzDf5ai</a>&mdash; Chadwick Boseman (@chadwickboseman) <a href="https://twitter.com/chadwickboseman/status/1299530165463199747?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 29, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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CRUCIAL QUOTE



“A true fighter, Chadwick persevered through it all, and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much. From Marshall to Da 5 Bloods, August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom and several more, all were filmed during countless surgeries and chemotherapy,” the statement reads.



-Rachel Sandler, Forbes Staff

European Premiere Of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther

‘Black Panther’ Star Chadwick Boseman Dies At 43

Since its premiere in April,&nbsp;Avengers: Endgame&nbsp;has been sending shockwaves across the Marvel multiverse, with a worldwide gross of $2.77 billion and counting after the movie’s return to theaters last month. With its domestic gross sitting at $848 million,&nbsp;Endgame&nbsp;is the second-highest-grossing film ever both in the U.S. and overseas.&nbsp;



That means a payday not just for Marvel Studios but also for the Avengers themselves, who have negotiated their way to superpowered deals.&nbsp;Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list of the world’s highest-earning entertainers this year features six&nbsp;Endgame&nbsp;heroes, from Chris Hemsworth (a.k.a. Thor) at No. 24 overall with $76.4 million (not all of his earnings were from&nbsp;Avengers) to Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) at No. 83 with $41 million. Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Bradley Cooper (Rocket Raccoon), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and Chris Evans (Captain America) also assembled and made the cut. Together, the team earned $340 million.



“Celebrities such as Downey and Johansson currently have extreme leverage to demand enormous compensation packages from studios investing hundreds of millions of dollars in making tent-pole films, such as&nbsp;The Avengers&nbsp;series,&#8221; says entertainment lawyer David Chidekel of Early Sullivan Wright Gizer &amp; McRae.



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Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios’ president, seems to agree: “We started saying that the character is the marquee name, and I think that’s still true, but I think we&#8217;ve been very lucky and thankful that the actors that imbibe these characters have now become them,” he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/2017/04/18/marvels-kevin-feige-talks-actor-compensation-and-the-studios-box-office-magic/#32a676ff1f27" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told&nbsp;Forbes</a>&nbsp;of the highly compensated group in 2017.



Marvel signs actors to multi-movie deals that also include promotional commitments. These deals often start off in the seven figures, which helps explain why newer superheroes like Brie Larson (Captain Marvel) and Tom Holland (the latest Spider-Man) didn’t make the Celeb 100 cut. But as actors stay with the MCU, their salaries increase. Veteran Marvel stars can command an upfront salary as high as $20 million (Downey). Others top heroes can earn in the neighborhood of $15 million (Hemsworth, Johansson, Evans), while second-tier characters make about $8 million (Rudd).&nbsp;



But the real money comes in later. All of this year’s listees proved so valuable to Marvel that they were able to negotiate for a piece of the profit—also known as contingent compensation—on both the ensemble&nbsp;Avengers&nbsp;films and their individual superhero films.



“A studio’s incentive to grant contingent compensation to various actors, writers, directors and other key personnel is simple.&nbsp;Movie studios depend upon tent-pole films to support their financial performance,” says Chidekel.



These points pay off.&nbsp;Avengers: Endgame, for example, has made about $700 million in profit from its box office run so far. For Downey, who has around 8% in back-end points, that translates to about $55 million, for a grand total of $75 million for the one film.&nbsp;



Even smaller characters like Cooper can command about 1% of the back end, which would translate to $7 million for&nbsp;Endgame. For their star vehicles, these actors can negotiate an even bigger cut of the profit.&nbsp;



“The percent of budget cost have certainly skewed heavy, particularly on the Avengers movies, to cast now, whereas maybe in the early ones it was more visual effects or below the line,” Feige said in 2017. “But that’s okay because [the actors] are the best effects.”



These sky-high paychecks have proved to be a worthwhile investment for the studio. With a built-in audience of comic book fans, scripts that are both funny and socially aware, and a powerful marketing strategy, MCU films have grossed over $22 billion since 2008. These actors continually return many times their salaries in box-office dollars. For instance, while Downey earned that eye-popping $75 million from&nbsp;Endgame, the film grossed $36.90 at the box office for every dollar he was paid. Those on the lower end of the earnings spectrum, like Rudd, produced over $100 at the box office for every dollar they were paid.



“Certainly the strange alchemy of seeing characters you’ve never seen before teamed up together on screen, if they were different versions of those characters, it wouldn&#8217;t be as fun,” Feige said. “It&#8217;s expensive but well worth it.”



We think Nick Fury would agree. 



-Madeline Berg; Forbes Staff

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Marvel Money: How Six Avengers Made $340 Million Last Year

At a board retreat in Orlando, Florida, in 2006, a pair of senior Disney executives predicted a seismic shift in the media landscape — one fueled by consumers who would enjoy unprecedented access to content. Their plan? Amass strong enough entertainment brands and franchises to grab the attention of viewers awash in choices.



That insight, part of a “Disney 2015” presentation by its CFO at the time, Tom Staggs, and corporate strategist Kevin Mayer, was delivered a dozen years before Netflix briefly surpassed Disney as the world&#8217;s most valuable media company in 2018. It would inform an aggressive buying binge, in the mold of the Pixar Animation Studios deal of 2006, that would roll up some of the world&#8217;s most recognizable entertainment brands under the Disney banner — Marvel Entertainment, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox. These form the foundation of the coming Disney+ streaming service, which CEO Bob Iger will discuss in detail at an investor day Thursday on Disney’s manicured studio lot in Burbank, California.



Analysts say Disney’s library of blockbuster films and popular TV shows, bolstered by its recent acquisition of Fox’s film and television assets, give it a competitive advantage that should help attract subscribers — even at a time when established rivals, like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, have gained a substantial head-start.



Disney and Fox together account for 47% of the top 100 films of all time, based on domestic box office. That’s more than double the nearest competitor, Warner Bros., with 20 hit movies. The combined Disney and Fox libraries also command the largest share of the 100 most popular TV shows, as ranked by IMDB. &nbsp;



Disney plans to mine its Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars franchises for original shows that will appear exclusively on the streaming service, including a live-action Star Wars TV series&nbsp;The Mandalorian, an animated series&nbsp;Monsters At Work, with Billy Crystal and John Goodman reprising their roles as Mike and Sully, and a series based on the Marvel archer character Hawkeye, starring Jeremy Renner.



“The amalgamation of Disney’s and Fox’s libraries will create an unparalleled combination of great, hard to recreate and memorable content,” said media analyst Michael Nathanson.



Nathanson predicts Disney+ will attract 7.1 million subscribers in its first year, growing to nearly 24 million by the end of fiscal 2022.



A question remains about whether a content company like Disney will be able to match Netflix’s technological prowess. The Los Gatos-based streaming service has been able to draw from its vast trove of user data to deliver recommendations that keep its 139 million global subscribers watching, month after month, and inform programming decisions.



Disney has stumbled on previous digital endeavors, such as DisneyLife, a U.K.-based streaming service that launched in 2015, charging £10 a month for access to some 400 movies, 4,000 TV episodes as well as songs and books. Despite a price drop, it has failed to catch on with subscribers, according to numerous published accounts.



The success of Disney+ is something Iger is staking his legacy on, describing it, during a recent investor call, as “our number one priority.”



That’s a major strategic shift for Disney, which had enabled the growth of Netflix through lucrative multi-year deals, such as the one in 2012 that gave the streaming service exclusive TV rights to new and catalog films, and another, the following year, that handed Netflix access to Marvel’s muscular superhero roster — with ABC Television Studio developing original series based on comic book characters Daredevil, Jessica Jones and Luke Cage.



Netflix became the de facto syndicator for a number of TV shows, noted Nathanson.



The inescapable toll of cord-cutting, fanned by popular services like Netflix, caused a re-calibration inside the Mouse House. Disney’s traditional cash cow, ESPN, has shed 13 million domestic subscribers from its peak in 20013, and Disney Channel also has lost millions of pay TV viewers.



Iger shifted course in 2017, announcing that Disney would pull its content from Netflix and launch its own service in 2019. That August, the company invested $1.58 billion to acquire a majority ownership of BAMTech, the MLB-founded video streaming technology that will power Disney+. That same year, in December, Disney announced its ground-breaking deal to acquire much of Fox, a move that would position Disney as the world&#8217;s preeminent entertainment company — and bulk up its library as it prepares to do battle with Netflix.



The $71.3 billion Fox deal, which closed in March, reunited the X-Men and Fantastic Four with the rest of the Marvel universe, added&nbsp;The Simpsons&nbsp;and&nbsp;Ice Age&nbsp;to Disney and Pixar’s animated roster, and brought James Cameron’s four sequels to the box-office blockbuster Avatar under the Disney banner. It also gave Disney a controlling interest in Hulu, a streaming service jointly owned with Comcast’s NBCUniversal and AT&amp;T’s WarnerMedia, which has amassed 25 million subscribers.



Disney announced a sweeping corporate reorganization in March of 2018, to consolidate its streaming operations under the executive who’d overseen its major acquisitions, Kevin Mayer. Previously, efforts had been fragmented among the different business units, with the film and television groups pursuing different digital strategies, say former insiders.



“Depending on how aggressively Disney intends to invest, and their willingness to accept compressed profit margins, the company has a chance to become a meaningful competitor to Netflix and Amazon’s Prime Video,” wrote Brian Wieser, a long-time media analyst who now oversees business intelligence for GroupM, one of the world’s largest media buyers.



-Dawn Chmielewski; Forbes Staff

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How Disney’s Investment In Entertainment Brands Like Marvel and Star Wars Will Power The Launch Of Its New Streaming Service

Marvel Studios&#8217; Black Panther bounded to success at the President&#8217;s Day box office, notching $242 million domestically over the four-day weekend &#8211; the second-highest such opening behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and the biggest ever debut for a black director. In a triumph that could impact onscreen representation, its $184.6 million overseas total disproves a long-held industry myth that films with black casts underperform overseas.
The Ryan Coogler-directed action flick beat expectations to score the fifth biggest North American debut of all time. Even with an eye watering $200 million production budget and an estimated $150 million more spent on publicity, the tentpole it set to recoup its costs.
Black Panther follows T&#8217;Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) as he is crowned king of Wakanda, a technologically advanced nation in Africa rich in the valuable metal vibranium. Alongside a cast including Lupita Nyong&#8217;o, Daniel Kaluuya and Forest Whitaker, he must protect the throne from an outside challenger: the Oakland, California-raised Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan).
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2018/02/21/marvelled-black-panthers-reimagining-africa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: How I marvelled at Black Panther&#8217;s reimagining of Africa</a>
The comic book adaptation has already become the top-grossing film with a predominantly black cast. It outperformed hits from yesteryear such as Martin Lawrence and Will Smith&#8217;s Bad Boys series and Eddie Murphy&#8217;s Coming to America, the latter of which grossed $288.8 million in 1988.
Given that North American theater attendance dipped 6% in 2017, international markets have become ever more important. But movies with black casts have long struggled with the lore that they don&#8217;t perform well overseas. Take 2015&#8217;s Straight Outta Compton, which notched just 20% of its $201.6 million gross internationally, or Get Out, which scored less than a third of its $176 million worldwide gross overseas.
Black Panther destroys that assumption: Its $184.6 million overseas tally already accounts for 43% of its total gross, putting its international performance on track with other Marvel movies which can often double their domestic take overseas.
&#8220;Audiences deserve to see themselves reflected on the big screen,&#8221; Disney distribution chief Dave Hollis told the <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/black-panther-weekend-box-office-record-shattering-debut-1085932" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hollywood Reporter</a>. &#8220;Beyond being the right thing to do, it makes for richer storytelling.&#8221;
In recent years, movements such as #OscarsSoWhite have drawn attention to the lack of representation onscreen. Black characters comprised just 13.6% of characters of the top-grossing films in 2016, while white characters accounted for 70.8% of characters, according to a <a href="http://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/Dr_Stacy_L_Smith-Inequality_in_900_Popular_Films.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2017 study</a> by USC Annenberg&#8217;s Media, Diversity &amp; Social Change initiative. That inequity was mirrored behind camera, too, where black directors made up just 5.6% of helmers. But far more black characters were found onscreen in movies with a black director than when a non-black director was in the seat.
Studios have begun taking steps to balance projects on both sides of the camera &#8211; and it&#8217;s boosting bottom lines. Last year, Warner Bros.&#8217; female fronted and helmed Wonder Woman grossed $821.8 million worldwide on a $149 million budget, while Universal&#8217;s Girls Trip, with four black stars and a black director, managed $140 million on a $19 million budget.
Disney has been leading the charge. Beyond Black Panther, it signed up Ava DuVernay to direct the forthcoming A Wrinkle in Time, starring Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Michael Peña and Mindy Kaling. Its 2017 cartoon offering, Coco, explored the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead as voiced by Latino actors.
&#8220;The world has embraced Black Panther, which has obliterated expectations, broken records and shattered myths,&#8221; tweeted Disney CEO and chairman Bob Iger.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/arts/2018/02/19/black-panther-box-office-records-broke-almost-broke-235m-debut/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Black Panther: All The Box Office Records It Broke (And Almost Broke) In Its $235m Debut</a>
Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion in 2009, nabbing its character universe &#8211; which includes the Hulk, Thor, Captain America and now Black Panther &#8211; that make Marvel&#8217;s Cinematic Universe the highest-grossing franchise of all time.
Working within the framework of a superhero action movie, Black Panther focuses exclusively on black, African and African-American identities. The few white characters onscreen are not fleshed out and serve as little more than foils to the black protagonists &#8211; a refreshing reversal from Hollywood tropes that tokenize black characters, such as the black best friend.
In the U.S., Black Panther&#8216;s diverse cast was reflected in its audience. Some 37% of moviegoers were African-American, per ComsCore, compared to just 15% on usual superhero movies, reflecting a pent-up demand for a black superhero. Women also turned out in droves, accounting for 45% of all ticket buyers.
As the movie continues its international rollout, Disney will be hoping that for theater goers, it&#8217;s Wakanda forever. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalierobehmed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-ga-track="contrib block byline">Natalie Robehmed</a>, FORBES STAFF

A $426.6 Million Opening Makes ‘Black Panther’ The Top-Grossing Film With A Black Cast

Watching Marvel’s highly anticipated comic-book film adaptation, Black Panther, was no ordinary tried and tested cinematic experience. Much like the unapologetic showmanship, flamboyance and atmospheric idiosyncrasies of Sunday service black congregational worship, the cinema metamorphosised beyond its remnants of unswept popcorn kernels and sticky milkshake residue into an augmented space. It became a “mega-church” sanctuary of spiritual catharsis – with all the impassioned and melodic trimmings of Afro-Pentecostalism.
But, make no mistake, this was not the time nor place for solemn contemplation or confessing past transgressions – but an opportunity for continental Africans and diaspora to offload socially sanctioned climactic expressions of individual and collective excitement and expectations, as well as lip-bitten anxieties about a fictionalised Africa.
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If this was an Afro-baptism in filmic spirit, I sought – and submitted to – full-bodied immersion.
Let’s be clear, the fervour over Black Panther among the Ankra-wearing, close-cropped Afro-crowned cinemagoers is incredibly warranted for several reasons. Not least for its reimagining, its re-presentation of Africa and communities therein – with magical realism – that makes it an intriguing anomaly among the slew of other questionable Western cinematic attempts to deliver “Africa” on screen.
Die-hard Marvel fans and those newly christened have waited with baited breath to secure a one-way ticket to Wakanda – the wondrous Afro-futuristic utopia and homeland of the titular character Black Panther (played by Chadwick Boseman). But this is by no means Hollywood’s first foray into fictionalised African kingdoms. Before Wakanda, there was the similarly named and seemingly “African-sounding” Zumunda in Eddie Murphy’s 1998 blockbuster <a href="http://www.ebony.com/news-views/coming-to-america-offensive-to-africans-981" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Coming to America</a>.
But Zumunda presented as nothing more than a visual repository of African clichés and normative assumptions, where wild animals, as domesticated pets, cohabit “as they do” nonchalantly with humans. So too, where royalty enrobe in lion’s fur.
As the Nigerian literary darling <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9Ihs241zeg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie</a> put it: &#8220;If all I knew about Africa were from popular images, I too would think that Africa was a place of beautiful landscapes, animals and incomprehensible people, fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and Aids, unable to speak for themselves.&#8221;
If only I could speculate on what may have informed such a proclamation… dare I venture towards films such as <a href="http://www.filmsite.org/afri.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The African Queen</a>, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/africa/kenya/articles/Out-of-Africa-The-film-that-made-us-fall-in-love-with-Kenya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Out of Africa</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2005/04/the-movie-review-hotel-rwanda/69612/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hotel Rwanda</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/jun/10/last-king-of-scotland-history" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Last King of Scotland</a>, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/08/movies/08diam.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Blood Diamond</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/02/beasts-of-no-nation-review-brutal-epic-opens-awards-season-in-style" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Beasts of No Nation</a> – to name a handful.
<h2>Africa’s burden</h2>
Those cinematic offerings were the colonial-era myth-makers and extenders whose white lensed romanticisms have determined the space within which Africa is defined and knowable. It is also within this space that the complexities and pluralities of African representation have been lost in simplification and concealment.
Surely these films must have affixed the “Afro” in the unmistaken and riotous Afro-futurism of Black Panther. But its the “futurism” aspect that makes Black Panther stand head and shoulders above the rest. Showcasing an iteration of Africa that is more imaginatively radical than merely culturally palatable for audiences who are used to being spoon-fed – better yet, force-fed – microwavable doses of an Africa that is melancholic, benighted and savage, to satisfy their visually myopic cravings.
Unlike its predecessors, Black Panther’s Afro-futuristic elements challenge stereotypes by readjusting the barometer of African imagination. Where Africa and black-Africanness is equated with discourses of futurism, cybernetics, sci-fi fantasy and mysticism.
<h2>New African century</h2>
This is a far cry from previous film interpretations of Africa, and especially of Africa’s future – or lack thereof. It has too often been represented as provisional and ephemeral – or arbitrated by the technocratic and philanthropic efforts of white do-gooders. Instead, Black Panther provides a prophetic reimagining of Africa with its postmodern gravity-defying vehicles and supersonic technology that far exceed human comprehension.
This has important implications for how we see Africa, through films which have long anchored it in a “forever-more” state that is seemingly unenlightened, backward-leaning and perceived as a prolongation of the past.
So, too, the film speaks volumes about how young and old black African “selves” can infiltrate otherworldly spheres. Its Afro-futurism allows black folk to apply self-iterations and augment alternate realities that transcend the limitations of the “here and now” towards the “what ifs” and “could bes”, through their own melanin-infused, ethno-cultural lens.
Equally, with its vestiges of the past and nods to the future, Black Panther presents a certain “contemporary ordinariness” within Africa that is discernible in all its parts. Where streets of African cities, for example, are littered with mother-tongue speaking, iPhone-clutching youth, dressed in dashiki-patterned bomber jackets, skinny jeans and with basket-woven braided hairstyles.
Moreover, the portrayal of Wakanda as resource-rich, unsoiled by European colonialism and the paraphernalia of international development, challenges cinematic presumptions of an Africa that is deficient, agentless and lacking internal diplomacies for sovereignty.
<h2>Africa upgraded</h2>
This is further reinforced by the central staging and representation of steely-eyed, intelligent African women – as Beyoncé avows in her feminist-imbued record <a href="http://blackyouthproject.com/upgrade-u-what-we-can-learn-from-beyonce/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upgrade U</a>, if the men are “the block” the women are “the lights that the keep streets on”. We see this in the female Wakandans, the unyielding pillars of the film, who demystify allusions and illusions of Africa – through its female proxies – as infantilised, subordinate and devoid of individual articulation of unique intent.
As a Marvel trailblazer, Black Panther is stunning in its redefining of Africa’s aesthetic within the cultural zeitgeist of cinematic consciousness. It trades cinema’s historical blueprint for Africa, for its own set of black paws. Suffice to say, representation (in all its shades) matters. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/edward-ademolu-441945" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Edward Ademolu</a>, PhD researcher, University of Manchester
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.
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Tag: Marvel