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

When Vanessa Sinden turned her back on South Africa&#8217;s growing movie industry to work in a barn making cartoons, people thought she was mad.
Three years later, Triggerfish, the fledgling animation company she joined in 2009, turned from minnow to big fish on the continent. It has produced award-winning creations on cheap budgets. All thanks to ingenuity, childhood ambitions and the urge to tell African stories, she says.
&#8220;My first job in animation was one of the biggest films this country has ever made. I think I fell with my butt in the butter&#8230; we had to figure out how to make a film from scratch, we had no clue,&#8221; laughs Sinden.
It is an animation business nurtured in a 193-year-old barn with wooden floors, white-washed walls, swinging barn doors and roaming cows beyond.
These days, it&#8217;s not only the cows that roam on the farm in the southern suburbs in Cape Town. It is also the computer geeks who roam with their animation tablets amid rows of computers whizzing as they render 3D animations.
Sinden has been on the farm since the beginning. The barn betrays the youthful spirit of its inhabitants. All around are action figurines, posters of cartoon characters, table tennis tables, stock-piled vending machines, popcorn maker and coffee stations.
It is no mean feat for Sinden, who has spent eight years in this barn bringing to life African animation movies <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1488181/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Adventures of Zambezia</a> ($35 million) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1487931/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Khumba</a> ($26 million) that became South African blockbusters and the third and fourth best-grossing films in the country&#8217;s history, respectively.
&#8220;South Africa is the leading emerging animation industry in the world. We cannot beat Asia in terms of raw costs, but that is just servicing work. In Africa, we are passionate about our own work, our stories being told,&#8221; says Sinden.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Adventures In Zambezia Official US DVD Release Trailer #1 (2013) - Leonard Nimoy Movie HD" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pT5rSNHbMGA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5095510/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stick Man</a>, a BBC One Christmas collaboration with Magic Light Pictures, has now won 11 international awards on three continents, including the Cristal for a TV Production at the world’s leading animation festival, Annecy.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Stick family&#039;s Christmas morning | Stick Man - BBC" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DikJ45aVxFY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Such is their prestige, Triggerfish were given rare rights to produce, alongside Magic Light Pictures again, Roald Dahl&#8217;s Revolting Rhymes which premiered in Africa in March.
In June, this latest work scored a hat-trick: first winning Best Storytelling at Shanghai International Film and TV Festival in China, then Best Animation at the Banff World Media Festival in Canada, and finishing off with the Cristal for Best TV Production at Annecy in France, the world’s premier animation festival.
Triggerfish’s hat-trick follows just days after the release of the National Film and Video Foundation’s (NFVF) second Economic Impact Assessment on the South African film industry, which found that the sector’s GDP contribution had increased from R3.5 billion in 2013 to R5.4 billion in 2016.
“With South Africa officially in recession, it’s more important than ever that our economy finds new avenues for growth,” says Triggerfish Animation CEO Stuart Forrest.
“The animation sector is still the smallest part of the film industry, according to the NFVF’s study, but our three awards on three continents this weekend are further proof that we are punching above our weight. We believe that with continued government support, animation can become a key, job-intensive growth sector in South Africa.”
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/04/01/animate-beloved-country/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Animate The Beloved Country</a>
On the international scene, box office successes like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1323594/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Despicable Me</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266543/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Finding Nemo</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Frozen</a> show the heavy demand for animation films. Triggerfish believes it is Africa’s time.
&#8220;The animation industry [in South Africa] is still very fledgling. 2007 was the first time someone could work in the industry in this country, since then there has been a couple of films and a couple of 2D studios making content for Disney, but not a lot of people have had the opportunity to do their own stories, their own content. That&#8217;s a big deal,&#8221; says Sinden.
What it means for Sinden and the animators of Triggerfish is coming up with the next big hit.
It is a lot harder than you think.
&#8220;At the heart of this issue, is we don&#8217;t have enough stories that are going to hold up worldwide. Universal stories for the family,&#8221; says Sinden.
This is why Sinden has been spearheading initiatives like Story Lab, a competition supported by the South African Department of Trade &amp; Industry and US-based Disney that aims to develop African stories by Africans. Triggerfish were looking for four feature films and four TV series for development; they got 1,400 entries from 30 countries.
&#8220;We wanted the best stories and we wanted to mentor and nurture them through bringing the best in the world from Hollywood to teach them here. We identified 38 writers to have projects we love. We held a two-week workshop in 2015.&#8221;
The cherry on the top was the final eight would be given a rare foot in the door with mentorship at the Walt Disney Company in Burbank, Hollywood.
Two years later, and in the present, Sinden says the feature films are in their first drafts and the TV programs are ready and looking for investors.
South Africa is also in the unique position to produce movies at a fraction of the budgets of Europe and the US. It is a cut-throat business driven by merchandise and the young.
&#8220;Pixar are sitting at $100 million to make a film and then double that for marketing. Adventures of Zambezia and Khumba was both made under $5 million each&#8230; Film is basically a $100 million advert. [Pixar, Dreamworks and Marvel] are alive because of the off-screen sales on merchandise. Disney are the godfathers of this. They have 100 years of creating content it has sold off the shelf. They realized way back in the day its off-screen sales and brands make the money. It wasn&#8217;t about Mickey Mouse on the screen. We&#8217;re all catching up now,&#8221; says Sinden.
In this fast-paced industry, Triggerfish have adjusted their pipeline to focus on television.
&#8220;What Triggerfish is finding is with television there is a quicker turnaround time, and there can be momentum. If you have [content] that is interesting, you can get investors to move in quite quickly. For us to change our pipeline from movies to TV series was a massive shift. It means producing a TV episode once a week. But it&#8217;s a better business model. It is our own merchandising, our own content and we can make money off that,&#8221; says Sinden.
&#8220;Triggerfish has always been about passion but we also have realized we need to make money. We thought we would make money off our first two projects but we haven&#8217;t yet. We&#8217;ve paid all our gap investors and financers, but that&#8217;s about it.&#8221;
Another reason why Triggerfish is targeting TV is the paradigm shift of gender-based content &#8211; especially young girls.
&#8220;I see from my nephew, [boys] are given such a platter of all this variety, but all the girls are offered are pink sparkles and princesses.&#8221;
&#8220;Girls haven&#8217;t gone to university with dreams of becoming animators. Why are there so few women in those roles? It is because they weren&#8217;t encouraged to do so when they were girls. Now the content to pre-schoolers is saying you can be engineers, you can be scientists, nothing is stopping you, or you can still be a princess in pink. There is nothing stopping you.&#8221;
Two new shows set to air will break these sexualized conventions featuring not only girls in lead roles experimenting in science and engineering, but also Africans. One of them is a girl who decided she wants to be a princess and a ninja. The other, called Mama K&#8217;s Super Four, features four teenage girls who have to save the world on a budget from their headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia&#8217;s capital. The story is written by Malenga Mulendema, who lives and works in that city.
&#8220;Malenga asked… ‘why can&#8217;t she see herself in any of those roles, there are no black girls who speaks to who she is and what she does why can&#8217;t she see herself as hero’.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s an all-black girl cast, all shapes and sizes and it just taps on those little buttons, that girls don&#8217;t have to be skinny, you can be beautiful and be curvy and busty, and be smart and techie and programmed robots and that&#8217;s beautiful too,&#8221; says Sinden.
&#8220;Four teenage girls living in Lusaka, who save the world, may not appeal to a girl in Germany, but reality is the time is right and content and stories like this will come from Africa and we think there is a market.&#8221;
For Sinden, now 39 years old, transforming the animation industry and seeing equal gender-based content come to life is a dream come true. When she was young, she was watching movies like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103639/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aladdin</a> and singing along to the cassette in her dad&#8217;s car for months.
&#8220;Kids love the visual characters and the vibes you get from watching their reactions are the hooks for me… I remember when <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120623/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Bugs Life</a> came out in my late teens and I was the only adult in the entire cinema.&#8221;
There is even more hard work ahead. Around the world only one in five women are in the industry, says Sinden.
&#8220;Parents don&#8217;t think the film industry is a great industry. My parents were put off when I told them I wanted to work in film and started off working for free and finding a job. They said ‘why would you do that, why would you work backwards’.&#8221;
There is even more in store for the company that works out of a barn. On the horizon is Seal Team – an origins story of navy seals.
&#8220;It’s seals versus sharks and it’s meant to be true to the genre, seals standing up to the bully sharks. It&#8217;s going to be great for the boys. That’s currently going into storyboarding come July. We are currently going into the script at the moment.&#8221;
All from a barn where childhood dreams were born, where the tough business of animation is carried out.

‘It’s Africa’s Time For Animation’

For Nas Hoosen, the bug bit when he was five. From that day on he loved reading comics. But, because they were so scarce, he started making up his own.
Who would have thought these first drawings would be the start of a journey that would take Hoosen to writing his own feature film, The Wild Waste, for Cape Town’s Triggerfish Animation Studios, at the age of 29?
“I’d get part three of a story and it would end on a cliff-hanger, so I used to draw my own Spider-Man comics just so I could see the stories continue,” says Hoosen.
On any given day you will find the energetic Hoosen in Ansteys, one of the oldest art deco buildings in Johannesburg. Movie deals are as uncommon in this African city as comic book stores.
Hoosen was lucky to land it; his story was one in 1,400 submissions from 30 countries in a competition run by Triggerfish in 2015. Triggerfish was looking for four feature films and four TV series for development.
The cherry on top was the final eight would get a foot in the door with a mentorship at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Hollywood. Called Story Lab, the competition is also supported by the South African Department of Trade and Industry.
“We toured every skull of the multi-headed hydra that is Disney, from the Lucasfilm offices to the Imagineering workshop. It’s everything you think it is, a bunch of stuff you can’t imagine, and then sometimes you’re just sitting in a Mexican restaurant with the screenwriter of The Lion King.”
Hoosen says it’s too early to tell what The Wild Waste will look like on screen; he describes it as a big shapeless thing constantly on the move.
“The gist is that it’s a big, exciting romp through a version of South Africa that I think we haven’t seen before. It’s an urban fantasy adventure film with robots and monsters and an epic quest at the heart of it. And it’s going to be fun,” says Hoosen.
“I don’t think most people – me included – realize just how much goes into the production of a film, particularly when you don’t have the resources to make screenwriting your full-time job. But it continues in earnest, with tons of planning and plotting and writing and rewriting and note-taking.”
Hoosen’s journey into the realm of fantasy started with Action Comics #532. He remembers the story vividly. Hoosen grew up a big reader. His older brother bought his first comic books and on Saturdays he shared bowls of cereal watching cartoons.
Hoosen didn’t get to where he is now by just sitting on the couch. He had some battles.
“My mother didn’t want me to study film because she was afraid I wouldn’t find work, so I studied journalism instead. And there are always going to be huge barriers for young people wanting to do what they’re passionate about, particularly if they come from households where money is a big concern. Our parents want the best for us but they also want us to have stable, healthy and successful lives more than anything, so they set up barriers rooted in expectation that for a long while really confuse us,” says Hoosen.
In addition to his movie, Hoosen co-founded the South African comic SECTOR, for which he writes the psychedelic horror series Red Air. The anthology releases an issue every two months and showcases Africa’s rising talent.
“Red Air is about a small group of astronauts who have been shipped off to build a civilization in the red deserts of Mars. But they’re losing it; disassociating. They have to listen to the same pop music day in and day out, over and over. And then one of them goes insane and starts murdering the others. It’s a comic about murder, music and madness. It’s a John Carpenter homage. It’s a psychedelic exploration of our subconscious relationship with pop culture. It’s also a lot of fun to write,” says Hoosen.
One of SECTOR’s co-founders is Moray Rhoda, often called the godfather of South African comics.
“The comic book industry is a huge money sink. Most people aren’t getting paid. Some are like [renowned illustrator] Jason Masters and some others who work with international publishers. For the rest of us who are selling locally, one issue will pay for the next issue at best. There is little incentive to carry on, unless you manage to build a fan base and have people interested in seeing where your stories follow on,” says Rhoda.
This is why SECTOR, which is one of the few independent comics produced in Africa, plays an important role in providing a platform to local artists to develop their work.
“SECTOR came out of a much larger conversation that was happening in the South African comics scene&#8230; We felt like the scene needed a lot of work – quality control, editorial guidance, and a shared financial interest to motivate people to make work on time and (mostly) hit their deadlines. Moray brought this up in the larger comics community and found enough interested parties that we could band together and make this book happen,” says Hoosen.
South Africans are playing an important role in the $1-billion comic book industry. Hoosen says Africa has produced successful professionals like Sean Izaakse, Joe Daily, Masters, Lauren Beukes and Dale Halverson.
“They all make fantastic work that is available through publishers like Marvel, Dynamite, Vertigo and Fantagraphics. And that’s not to mention guys like Loyiso Mkize, who make work like Kwezi locally, which is now being distributed through Exclusive Books.”
“One thing I do want to see more of is marginalized voices rising to the top. I mentioned five major creators and they’re all incredibly talented, but they’re also all incredibly white. I want to see black creators, I want to see more than one woman in the mix. This is South Africa after all.”
“We have the talent and the capability, but we need to be making the work. Creative people are by nature, I think, hesitant and trepidatious about making work and showing it to people. But f*** that. No one else can draw like you or write like you or think like you, so you need to be out there making work and showing it to people and getting feedback and working to improve.”
The popcorn must taste sweeter every time Hoosen sits in a movie theater watching an African story.

Tag: Walt Disney

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