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6 Things Disney Needs To Do With Their Marvel and Star Wars Licenses
As you can probably easily surmise, I am not the CEO of any Fortune 500 companies, nor do I have any sort of business acumen whatsoever. So I have no idea what goes into licensing deals, copyright agreements or ownership of beloved companies and franchises. What I am, however, is some schmuck who manages to string words and sentences together into a pop culture blog enjoyed by dozens every day. So if anyone is in a position to tell the overlords at Disney what to do with their Marvel and Star Wars properties, it’s me. Clearly.
Over the past few years, Disney has been on some kind of tirade, gobbling up several famous and beloved franchises to add to their already sizable pop culture family. Disney now owns The Muppets, Marvel Comics and Star Wars, among others. And while I have no idea what this means in the long run, I at least know that these companies and creations will have the support of the world’s largest entertainment empire. That’s got to mean a lot for longevity, right? We also know that Disney hasn’t rushed to dilute the purity and awesomeness of these brands. They don’t seem to want to interfere unless it’s too help. I can definitely get behind that.
But I can also get behind a greater exploitation of these brands. Because I am a man who built his own toy lightsaber at Disney World and have proudly displayed it on my wall. So here are 6 suggestions from little old me about what Disney should and could do with their Marvel and Star Wars properties.
If ‘Finding Neverland’ Was About Mary Poppins Instead
There’s a big new prestige movie coming out in December starring Tom Hanks as Walt Disney. That is some inspired casting. The movie is about Walt Disney trying to convince author P.L. Travers to let him make a movie about Mary Poppins. The film is called Saving Mr. Banks.
Now honestly. That plot and that title? It’s like an unofficial/unplanned sequel to Finding Neverland, about the author of Peter Pan.
At least the trailer looks pretty good. Looks like the perfect schmaltzy December sort of movie. And again, Tom Hanks as Walt Disney? Brilliant! He should do a hole series of Disney biopics.
Now is Apparently the Time for New Mickey Mouse Cartoons
Are we living in some kind of golden age of animation? Because Disney has randomly produced a couple of new cartoon shorts starring Mickey, Donald and the gang. What’s up with that!?
Pretty neat, right? More power to them, I suppose. Heck, somewhere in the world, somebody gets to say their job is to make Mickey Mouse cartoons. Here’s another one. View and enjoy!
Animated Big Hero 6 Confirmed with Video of Street
Disney and Marvel have confirmed they’re teaming up with make an animated Big Hero 6! This is pretty cool news. Rumors of Big Hero 6 first started swirling last July. The Big Hero 6 are a superhero team from Japan, filled with various Japanese-themed heroes, like a giant lizard, a robot and I think a ninja or two. Nobody that mainstream audiences have ever heard of, but probably perfect for an animated cartoon. I like that Disney is willing to take chances on Marvel properties instead of just making an Avengers cartoon movie.
As part of the announcement, Disney released this preview footage…which is basically just a street.
So nothing to see there.
More interestingly, we have this plot synopsis, which is much more fun:
This day just got exciting. We have the first look at concept art from Big Hero 6, the action comedy adventure from Walt Disney Animation Studios. The story centers around a brilliant robotics prodigy, Hiro Hamada, who finds himself in the grips of a criminal plot that threatens to destroy the fast-paced, high-tech city of San Fransokyo. With the help of his closest companion—a robot named Baymax—Hiro joins forces with a reluctant team of first-time crime fighters on a mission to save their city.
Inspired by the Marvel comics of the same name, and featuring comic-book style action, the CG-animated Big Hero 6 hits theaters in 3D on November 7, 2014. Try to remain calm about the fact that you still have 546 days to wait. (We say this, knowing that we’re going to fail at it.)
So yeah, this should be a pretty cool movie.
Paperman Parody
We here at Henchman-4-Hire are big fans of the Oscar-winning animated short Paperman. So of course we’re going to share this hilarious, kinda raunchy parody by College Humor.
Good times. I’d link you to the original, but you kind of have to pay for it. Sorry.
Henchman-4-Hire 