| The Walt Disney Company is one of the largest show business corporations in the world. Founded on October 16, 1923 by Walt & Roy Disney brothers as small animation studio & now regarded as one of the biggest Hollywood studios, owner of 11 thematic parks & two aqua-parks & also several television networks, which include American Broadcasting Company (ABC).
Headquarters of Walt Disney Company & main production facilities are concentrated in Walt Disney Studios, Burbank City, State of California, USA.
Walt Disney Company is part of Dow Jones Industrial Average. Market capitalization as on November 20, 2006 - about 69 Billion USD.
History:
Walt Disney Company was formed on October 16, 1923 by Walt & Roy Disney brothers as a small animation studio.
Divisions:
Entertainment Division:
Until 1955, original & single business of Walt Disney Company was film making. Division is also known as Walt Disney Studios, which includes film & animation Disney studios, sound recording labels & series of Broadway theatrical presentations. Since 2002, this division is headed by Dick Cook.
Film-making:
Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group – group of primary Walt Disney film studios, which includes:
Walt Disney Pictures
Touchstone Pictures (not under the “Disney” brand);
Hollywood Pictures (not under the “Disney” brand);
Miramax Films (not under the “Disney” brand);
Sound recording labels:
Buena Vista Music Group;
Walt Disney Records;
Mammoth Records;
Lyric Street Records;
Hollywood Records;
Theatres:
Walt Disney Theatrical;
Hyperion Theatrical (not under the “Disney” brand);
Animation:
Walt Disney Feature Animation;
Walt Disney Television Animation;
DisneyToon Studios;
Pixar Animation Studios
Parks & resorts:
Besides theme parks (“Disneyland”) & resorts, given division includes Disney Regional Entertainment (under which fall chain of ESPN Zone sports restaurants), Walt Disney Imagineering & Walt Disney Creative Entertainment.
Television networks:
Walt Disney Television;
Touchstone Television;
ABC Entertainment;
ABC Television Network;
Buena Vista Television;
ESPN;
SOAPnet;
Lifetime
Walt Disney Company possesses number of cable television networks including The Disney Channel, ABC Family, Toon Disney, network of channels ESPN & SOAPnet. Disney has substantial shareholder of Lifetime Television (50 %), A&E Network (37.5 %), E! (40 %) & Jetix Europe N.V. (100 %).
Disney supervises 10 local television stations, 26 local radio stations and also ESPN Radio & Radio Disney through American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Buena Vista Television prepares for broadcasting television shows such as “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”, “Live with Regis and Kelly” & “Ebert & Roeper”.
Disney owns publishing company Hyperion & also Internet division Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) & web sites such as Go.com, Disney.com, ESPN.com, ABCNews.com and Movies.com belong to WDIG.
In 2009, an agreement is reached for 4 billion USD, according to which Disney becomes owner of Marvel Entertainment Corporation, which publishes popular comic series. 5000 characters shall become the property of Disney including Spiderman & Iron Man, which are popular among youth.
Consumer goods:
Disney Publishing Worldwide;
Disney Store;
Jim Henson's Muppets;
Buena Vista Games
Activity parameters:
Turnover in financial year, which ended on September 30, 2006 constituted $34.3 Billion (year before - $31.9 Billion), net profit - $3.4 Billion ($2.5 Billion).
Marvel Comics is an American company, publishing comics & its subsidiary is Marvel Entertainment. Having received nickname “House of ideas” amongst the admirers of comics, Marvel is very famous for comic series such as “ Fantastic Four”, “Spider-Man”, “Hulk”, “Iron Man”, “DareDevil”, “SHOCK”, “Thor”, “Captain America” & “X-Men”. Majority of comic characters of Marvel live in one fictitious Universe, which was named Marvel Universe.
From 1960 Marvel Comics - one of two largest American companies, publishing comics on level with “DC Comics” (whose most popular characters are “Superman” & “Batman”).
Company is based in New York.
In August 2009, news spread that “The Walt Disney Company” is interested in buying Marvel for 4 Billion USD. Permission from US Antimonopoly Committee is only awaited for the conclusion of agreement.
Company “Marvel Comics” was founded by competent publisher of Pulp-magazines Martin Goodman in 1939 as group of associated companies under common name “Timely Comics”. First publication was Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), in which for the first time appeared Human –Torch android superhero, created by Carl Burgo & also had antihero-mutant Namor the Sub Mariner, created by Bill Everett little early. Comics were super hit, though the company did not have enough financial resources to satisfy the demand & “Timely Comics” had to pump-in the resources from outside company “Funnies Inc”.
First editor of the company, writer & artist Joe Simon joined hands with future comics industry-legend Jack Kirby to create first patriotic superhero, Captain America, who debuted in Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941). In terms of sales, Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) was also a super hit.
Though other characters of Timely were not so popular as these “Big Three”, some appreciable heroes of that time such as Whizzer, Miss America, Destroyer, original Vision & Angel continue to appear in modern comics.
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The Mouse bought Spiderman, Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, Captain America and the X-Men... On August 31st Walt Disney announced it was buying Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion, just days after the comic-book publisher had celebrated 70 glorious years of independence, during which it had created many of the most famous cartoon characters not invented by Disney itself. Disney will get access both to Marvel's creative minds and potentially far more valuable in an age when familiar stories rule the box office - an archive containing around 5,000 established characters, only a fraction of which have yet made the move from paper to the silver screen.
