真的要被自己写的作业给水哭了。。。
The Counterattack of Marvel
The Rising in Film and Survive in Comics
General Status Quo
In 2012, the film called ‘The Avengers’ became a miracle in the global film history. On the first run weekend, it got 207.4 million dollars, exceeding the former record holder ‘Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (The Second Half)’. Then it got the 450 million dollars cumulative box office during only 17 days, comparing with the same kind of superhero film ‘Batman the Dark Knight’ collecting for 27 days. Furthermore, it grossed more than 500 million dollars during only 23 days, even surpassing the 32-day-record of ‘Avatar’. Finally, the total global box office of ‘The Avengers’ was over 1.5 billion dollars, which became the most popular film in 2012 and took the third place of global box office rank list (The Numbers, 2014). As the incredible success of ‘The Avengers’ raising the enthusiasm of superheroes all over the world, the name of Marvel has been recalled.
Marvel is one of the two most famous America comic companies with Detective Comics (AKA DC). It was found in 1930s and created more than 8,000 characters. Thanks to the development of manufacture technologies, we could see the superheroes acted by real human beings, flying and fighting on the big screens. According to The Numbers’ report, the total gross of superhero film from 1995 to 2014 ranks at the 7th place of the Top-Grossing Creative Types List. Furthermore, to check the average gross, the performance of superhero films is the best. In other words, superheroes have become the most profitable film characters during the recent 2 decades. And Marvel must be the most remarkable studio, making the films of superheroes in recent years. In 2013, ‘Iron Man 3’ grossed 1.2 billion all over the world, peaking at the first place of annual box office ranking again (The Numbers, 2014). However, the story of Marvel was not just smooth like its successful experience since 2008. This company has dealt with several times of bankrupt crisis and finally made engagement with Disney in 2009. It is said that this acquisition case should be regarded as one of the best win-win deals in the last decade of Hollywood.
Crisis and Transformation
The story of superheroes and films must be referred to the acquisition between Time Warner and DC. In the late 1960s, Time Warner had already bought DC as its sub company. In 1978, ‘Superman’ became the first live action movie of the superheroes. As a great content provider, Marvel also recommended its superheroes to Hollywood studios in 1970s. However, the limitations of technology caused high barrier for it to enter this industry. It was hard that using the computer technologies to simulate the incredible abilities of the Marvel’s superheroes at that time. When the DC’s series of Superman and Batman made amount of money, Marvel only had the watching seat. However, the hot of superheroes cooled down because of the failure of ‘Superman 3’ in 1983.
In 1990s, Marvel experienced the fallen of comics and got trouble in finance. To solve the problems, Marvel tried to sell some copyrights of its famous characters. At this time, some of the manufacture technologies had been mature and the audience basis of these characters was extremely attractive. Finally, Sony Pictures bought the Spiderman and FOX chose the famous team X-Men, as well as Fantastic Four.
Selling the copyrights should be an expedient of Marvel. Obviously, it could get the copyright fees to turnover. In addition, regarding the software as physical products, no matter the performance of the films was good or not, Marvel could share the box office without other cost. On contrary, the weakness was also very strong. When Sony made 8.22 billion box office from ‘Spider-man’ in 2002, Marvel only got 30 million dollars. ‘Spider-man’ was a milestone of the superhero films since 21st century. The following films did not only prove that the audience conversion rate of comics’ fans was extremely high, they also gave the evidence showing their charm to normal audience. However, even realizing the value of its characters, Marvel was not well-capitalized to take risk to make films by itself.
The favourable turn happened in 2005, after the recovering of Marvel. Marvel signed a 10-film-contract with Paramount for future film distribution. In other words, Marvel decided to be a film producer. To support this deal, Marvel loaned more than 5 billion from the Merrill Lynch & Co (Eller, 2008). Then, the gambling of Marvel in film area began.
Disney’s Acquisition of Marvel
When Disney paid 42.2 billion to buy Marvel in 2009, most of the specialists said the result should not be predicted. Though ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Incredible Hulk’ made by Marvel in the last year performed well, the high frequency of superheroes showing on the big screens may lose the feeling of freshness of the audience. Nevertheless, the performance of following films has indicated that the superheroes’ market power keeps incredible.
This acquisition case is a typical application of transaction cost economics. A transaction occurs when a good or service is transferred across a technologically separable interface (Albarran, 2010). As a comics’ producer, Marvel has enough charming contents. However, as for the film area, Marvel is just a new entrant who does not have enough advantages and resources. The original intention of Disney to buy Marvel was to extend the market of male audience, especially the young boys. In other words, this deal helped Disney to save the money of creating new characters and stories. Furthermore, the market share of Marvel keeps very high. As a well-capitalized magnate of Hollywood, Disney has abundant of distribution channels. With the money and resources of Disney, Marvel could improve its competitive capability of making movies and spread the risks.
It is said that the cost of entering a new industry will be expensive with great risks. However, the high risks mean the possibility of more attractive returns. Actually, in Hollywood, the form of market structure is oligopoly. In addition, the CR6 of Hollywood distributors was 80.5% (The Numbers, 2014), which meant the concentrate degree of this market was extremely high. To enter this industry, the most effective and low risky way is to cooperate with the magnates. Specially, because of the high public reputation of Marvel’s contents and its loyalty audiences, Marvel Studio could still be independent as a brand. It is better to regard this acquisition case as a fantastic win-win deal.
Marvel’s Universe to Limit Niche Overlap
To be a profitable commercial film, one of the significant aims should be extending the target group. Therefore, Marvel could not just focus on the existing audiences of its comics. Actually, the target group of the comics is limited. According to the official settings of Marvel, the age of target group is 18 to 32-year-old males. Audience basis is always a double-edged sword of the comics based films. Certainly, the abundant of existing audience resources provides the potential film viewers. However, it might increase the niche overlap between the two contents provided by the same company. In addition, if the audiences who never see the comics cannot understand the story of films, it is hard for Marvel to extend its audience group. Therefore, Marvel has been building a new film universe, starting with the ‘Iron Man’ in 2008. This kind of strategy breaks down the barriers of new audiences, trying to balance the acceptance of most people. To succeed in young child, Marvel has learnt much of Hollywood storytelling model from Disney. And Disney has enough experience of making the public carnival in the film area. In other words, with the help of Disney, Marvel should enter the film industry much more easily.
The new universe is consisting of the comics, film series and TV series. Different kinds of media platforms are responsibility for variable story lines and the superheroes could be guest performers in others’ stages. The intersectional story lines have influences on each other. However, every story is isolated. It is said that the audiences could pick up the stories at any point they want and focus on the characters they like. The universe makes all the characters and events related, but it does not force the audiences to accept all of them. This kind of narrative method limits the niche overlap of the different media platforms, for they won’t tell the same story. On the other hand, the whole universe might gather the fans of different characters, extending the potential audience group. In other words, the contents of different platforms will not compete with each other, but help each other forward.
Overseas Production
The overseas production has been extremely popular among Hollywood studios. Actually, Disney has already been a brand owner. Mostly, Disney is only responsibility for the design and distribution, and the manufacture part might be outsourced to some foreign companies. The most significant reason should be to save the high labour cost in America. So does Marvel. The most important locations of ‘The Avengers 2’ are Shepperton Studio in UK, as well as some places of South Korea and Italy. Except for the cheap labour cost, shooting in America cost higher fees than other places because of the expensive tax and other outlay. Therefore, in recent years, increasing numbers of Hollywood Studios turn to the overseas production.
Cost controlling is not the only benefit of shooting overseas. Actually, there are still some paradises with low labour cost and favourable policies in America, such as Detroit. In 2013, ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ distributed by Paramount selected three locations in China. However, the actual shooting time was extremely limited and Paramount had already built a ‘City of China’ in Detroit. The reason why the Studio chose to shoot in China was the great amount of investment it could get. According to Xiaoxiang Morning News, the short time action shooting in China attracted more than 10 million RMB for Paramount. Marvel also tried hard to win the investment from China. In ‘Iron Man 3’, the characters acted by Wang Xueqi and Fan Bingbing were designed by the Chinese investor Dynamic Marketing Group (DMG).
Furthermore, the overseas production is kind of gambling between the studios and the local government, especially in Mainland China. The import quota of foreign films in China is 34 in total. Nevertheless, the co-production films are not limited by this regulation. Also take ‘Iron Man 3’ as an example. Firstly, Marvel Studio and DMG planned to make this film a co-production film. However, this cooperation mode decided that the film must be censored by Chinese government before producing. According to the news of ‘People’s Daily’, Marvel did not offer the whole script to SARFT to pretend the over interference from Chinese government. It said that ‘Iron Man 3’ was an imported film whose co-production reputation was canceled. Obviously, Marvel failed in this gambling with Chinese government. On the basis of SARFT’s policies, the co-production film should match the following requirements: more than one third investments from Chinese companies; important characters performed by Chinese actors or actresses; shoot in China. Co-production mode is helpful to break through the limitations of local governments, while it also brings some new limitations.
Special Marketing Approach and Globalization - UGC
Thanks to the booming of Internet platform, the whole world has become increasingly connected. Doing overseas promotion through the Internet is very popular among Hollywood studios. When referring the spread of Hollywood films in China, the online marketing is extremely important. However, mostly people notice the initiative promotion by studios themselves, without seeing the strong power of UGC.
UGC means the user-generated-content, which is already popular on the Internet platforms. Marvel has offered a space on its website for its fans to upload their creative works. This kind of voluntary behaviour should be very effective and powerful, because the makers are among the local people. Overseas promotion always has difficulties in matching the habits of the local people. Analyzing and finding out the audience’s custom is costly and ineffective because of the gap among different kinds of culture. The UGC creators are familiar with the user behaviours of local people and know how to attract them. In addition, they will never ask Marvel for payment. Save cost and match the customers’ needs. Good use of UGC should be a great powerful marketing approach in the future.
Saving at Digital Age
The stable box office in North America and the emerging overseas box office suggest the threat of digital age is not serious as the industry thought before. Not only is the film industry, even the traditional comic industry not influenced by the digital products. In 2012, the online sales volume of DC firmly increased 200%, after the cooperation with online bookstores like iBookstore, Kindle Store and Nook Store. Meantime, the sales volume of physical books also increased 12% (PICCIAU, 2013). To save at the digital age, trusting the luck is certainly the last choice. Marvel has tried to use the new technologies to serve for itself.
The digital platforms are extremely suitable for the America comics. At the beginning, Americans chose the colourful paintings because of the protection of copyrights. It was hard for pirate. However, the multiple screens could save space and paper than the traditional comic books. Marvel has cooperated with Amazon.com, and give digital editions for the Kindle Fire. In addition, Marvel has its own APP, and customers could buy digital comics through it. The special point is that, the comic forms design for different screens are different because of the screen sizes.
The usage of new technologies also helps of Marvel to promote its new films and characters. Some of the Chinese video websites will always pay for license fee of the series and films to attract Chinese Internet users. Though the money is not expensive enough to take an important position of all the revenue, it could still help to spread the new MCU built by Marvel to all over the world.
Conclusions
The counterattack of Marvel should be a gambling. Several years ago, no one can predict its gorgeous achievement of today. In some opinions, $4 billion is too high a price to pay for Marvel, based on the Graham and Dodd valuation (Calandro, 2010). However, most of the comments today think the deal of Disney was extremely great. The existing films have shown the potential of Super-Heroes and other studios are obviously learning the MCU of Marvel. The significant point is that Marvel has been seized the first opportunity, but the other studios are just imitating it. Therefore, if Marvel could keep creating the new trend in the area, it may always at the top place of the whole industry.
The Rising in Film and Survive in Comics
General Status Quo
In 2012, the film called ‘The Avengers’ became a miracle in the global film history. On the first run weekend, it got 207.4 million dollars, exceeding the former record holder ‘Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows (The Second Half)’. Then it got the 450 million dollars cumulative box office during only 17 days, comparing with the same kind of superhero film ‘Batman the Dark Knight’ collecting for 27 days. Furthermore, it grossed more than 500 million dollars during only 23 days, even surpassing the 32-day-record of ‘Avatar’. Finally, the total global box office of ‘The Avengers’ was over 1.5 billion dollars, which became the most popular film in 2012 and took the third place of global box office rank list (The Numbers, 2014). As the incredible success of ‘The Avengers’ raising the enthusiasm of superheroes all over the world, the name of Marvel has been recalled.
Marvel is one of the two most famous America comic companies with Detective Comics (AKA DC). It was found in 1930s and created more than 8,000 characters. Thanks to the development of manufacture technologies, we could see the superheroes acted by real human beings, flying and fighting on the big screens. According to The Numbers’ report, the total gross of superhero film from 1995 to 2014 ranks at the 7th place of the Top-Grossing Creative Types List. Furthermore, to check the average gross, the performance of superhero films is the best. In other words, superheroes have become the most profitable film characters during the recent 2 decades. And Marvel must be the most remarkable studio, making the films of superheroes in recent years. In 2013, ‘Iron Man 3’ grossed 1.2 billion all over the world, peaking at the first place of annual box office ranking again (The Numbers, 2014). However, the story of Marvel was not just smooth like its successful experience since 2008. This company has dealt with several times of bankrupt crisis and finally made engagement with Disney in 2009. It is said that this acquisition case should be regarded as one of the best win-win deals in the last decade of Hollywood.
Crisis and Transformation
The story of superheroes and films must be referred to the acquisition between Time Warner and DC. In the late 1960s, Time Warner had already bought DC as its sub company. In 1978, ‘Superman’ became the first live action movie of the superheroes. As a great content provider, Marvel also recommended its superheroes to Hollywood studios in 1970s. However, the limitations of technology caused high barrier for it to enter this industry. It was hard that using the computer technologies to simulate the incredible abilities of the Marvel’s superheroes at that time. When the DC’s series of Superman and Batman made amount of money, Marvel only had the watching seat. However, the hot of superheroes cooled down because of the failure of ‘Superman 3’ in 1983.
In 1990s, Marvel experienced the fallen of comics and got trouble in finance. To solve the problems, Marvel tried to sell some copyrights of its famous characters. At this time, some of the manufacture technologies had been mature and the audience basis of these characters was extremely attractive. Finally, Sony Pictures bought the Spiderman and FOX chose the famous team X-Men, as well as Fantastic Four.
Selling the copyrights should be an expedient of Marvel. Obviously, it could get the copyright fees to turnover. In addition, regarding the software as physical products, no matter the performance of the films was good or not, Marvel could share the box office without other cost. On contrary, the weakness was also very strong. When Sony made 8.22 billion box office from ‘Spider-man’ in 2002, Marvel only got 30 million dollars. ‘Spider-man’ was a milestone of the superhero films since 21st century. The following films did not only prove that the audience conversion rate of comics’ fans was extremely high, they also gave the evidence showing their charm to normal audience. However, even realizing the value of its characters, Marvel was not well-capitalized to take risk to make films by itself.
The favourable turn happened in 2005, after the recovering of Marvel. Marvel signed a 10-film-contract with Paramount for future film distribution. In other words, Marvel decided to be a film producer. To support this deal, Marvel loaned more than 5 billion from the Merrill Lynch & Co (Eller, 2008). Then, the gambling of Marvel in film area began.
Disney’s Acquisition of Marvel
When Disney paid 42.2 billion to buy Marvel in 2009, most of the specialists said the result should not be predicted. Though ‘Iron Man’ and ‘Incredible Hulk’ made by Marvel in the last year performed well, the high frequency of superheroes showing on the big screens may lose the feeling of freshness of the audience. Nevertheless, the performance of following films has indicated that the superheroes’ market power keeps incredible.
This acquisition case is a typical application of transaction cost economics. A transaction occurs when a good or service is transferred across a technologically separable interface (Albarran, 2010). As a comics’ producer, Marvel has enough charming contents. However, as for the film area, Marvel is just a new entrant who does not have enough advantages and resources. The original intention of Disney to buy Marvel was to extend the market of male audience, especially the young boys. In other words, this deal helped Disney to save the money of creating new characters and stories. Furthermore, the market share of Marvel keeps very high. As a well-capitalized magnate of Hollywood, Disney has abundant of distribution channels. With the money and resources of Disney, Marvel could improve its competitive capability of making movies and spread the risks.
It is said that the cost of entering a new industry will be expensive with great risks. However, the high risks mean the possibility of more attractive returns. Actually, in Hollywood, the form of market structure is oligopoly. In addition, the CR6 of Hollywood distributors was 80.5% (The Numbers, 2014), which meant the concentrate degree of this market was extremely high. To enter this industry, the most effective and low risky way is to cooperate with the magnates. Specially, because of the high public reputation of Marvel’s contents and its loyalty audiences, Marvel Studio could still be independent as a brand. It is better to regard this acquisition case as a fantastic win-win deal.
Marvel’s Universe to Limit Niche Overlap
To be a profitable commercial film, one of the significant aims should be extending the target group. Therefore, Marvel could not just focus on the existing audiences of its comics. Actually, the target group of the comics is limited. According to the official settings of Marvel, the age of target group is 18 to 32-year-old males. Audience basis is always a double-edged sword of the comics based films. Certainly, the abundant of existing audience resources provides the potential film viewers. However, it might increase the niche overlap between the two contents provided by the same company. In addition, if the audiences who never see the comics cannot understand the story of films, it is hard for Marvel to extend its audience group. Therefore, Marvel has been building a new film universe, starting with the ‘Iron Man’ in 2008. This kind of strategy breaks down the barriers of new audiences, trying to balance the acceptance of most people. To succeed in young child, Marvel has learnt much of Hollywood storytelling model from Disney. And Disney has enough experience of making the public carnival in the film area. In other words, with the help of Disney, Marvel should enter the film industry much more easily.
The new universe is consisting of the comics, film series and TV series. Different kinds of media platforms are responsibility for variable story lines and the superheroes could be guest performers in others’ stages. The intersectional story lines have influences on each other. However, every story is isolated. It is said that the audiences could pick up the stories at any point they want and focus on the characters they like. The universe makes all the characters and events related, but it does not force the audiences to accept all of them. This kind of narrative method limits the niche overlap of the different media platforms, for they won’t tell the same story. On the other hand, the whole universe might gather the fans of different characters, extending the potential audience group. In other words, the contents of different platforms will not compete with each other, but help each other forward.
Overseas Production
The overseas production has been extremely popular among Hollywood studios. Actually, Disney has already been a brand owner. Mostly, Disney is only responsibility for the design and distribution, and the manufacture part might be outsourced to some foreign companies. The most significant reason should be to save the high labour cost in America. So does Marvel. The most important locations of ‘The Avengers 2’ are Shepperton Studio in UK, as well as some places of South Korea and Italy. Except for the cheap labour cost, shooting in America cost higher fees than other places because of the expensive tax and other outlay. Therefore, in recent years, increasing numbers of Hollywood Studios turn to the overseas production.
Cost controlling is not the only benefit of shooting overseas. Actually, there are still some paradises with low labour cost and favourable policies in America, such as Detroit. In 2013, ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ distributed by Paramount selected three locations in China. However, the actual shooting time was extremely limited and Paramount had already built a ‘City of China’ in Detroit. The reason why the Studio chose to shoot in China was the great amount of investment it could get. According to Xiaoxiang Morning News, the short time action shooting in China attracted more than 10 million RMB for Paramount. Marvel also tried hard to win the investment from China. In ‘Iron Man 3’, the characters acted by Wang Xueqi and Fan Bingbing were designed by the Chinese investor Dynamic Marketing Group (DMG).
Furthermore, the overseas production is kind of gambling between the studios and the local government, especially in Mainland China. The import quota of foreign films in China is 34 in total. Nevertheless, the co-production films are not limited by this regulation. Also take ‘Iron Man 3’ as an example. Firstly, Marvel Studio and DMG planned to make this film a co-production film. However, this cooperation mode decided that the film must be censored by Chinese government before producing. According to the news of ‘People’s Daily’, Marvel did not offer the whole script to SARFT to pretend the over interference from Chinese government. It said that ‘Iron Man 3’ was an imported film whose co-production reputation was canceled. Obviously, Marvel failed in this gambling with Chinese government. On the basis of SARFT’s policies, the co-production film should match the following requirements: more than one third investments from Chinese companies; important characters performed by Chinese actors or actresses; shoot in China. Co-production mode is helpful to break through the limitations of local governments, while it also brings some new limitations.
Special Marketing Approach and Globalization - UGC
Thanks to the booming of Internet platform, the whole world has become increasingly connected. Doing overseas promotion through the Internet is very popular among Hollywood studios. When referring the spread of Hollywood films in China, the online marketing is extremely important. However, mostly people notice the initiative promotion by studios themselves, without seeing the strong power of UGC.
UGC means the user-generated-content, which is already popular on the Internet platforms. Marvel has offered a space on its website for its fans to upload their creative works. This kind of voluntary behaviour should be very effective and powerful, because the makers are among the local people. Overseas promotion always has difficulties in matching the habits of the local people. Analyzing and finding out the audience’s custom is costly and ineffective because of the gap among different kinds of culture. The UGC creators are familiar with the user behaviours of local people and know how to attract them. In addition, they will never ask Marvel for payment. Save cost and match the customers’ needs. Good use of UGC should be a great powerful marketing approach in the future.
Saving at Digital Age
The stable box office in North America and the emerging overseas box office suggest the threat of digital age is not serious as the industry thought before. Not only is the film industry, even the traditional comic industry not influenced by the digital products. In 2012, the online sales volume of DC firmly increased 200%, after the cooperation with online bookstores like iBookstore, Kindle Store and Nook Store. Meantime, the sales volume of physical books also increased 12% (PICCIAU, 2013). To save at the digital age, trusting the luck is certainly the last choice. Marvel has tried to use the new technologies to serve for itself.
The digital platforms are extremely suitable for the America comics. At the beginning, Americans chose the colourful paintings because of the protection of copyrights. It was hard for pirate. However, the multiple screens could save space and paper than the traditional comic books. Marvel has cooperated with Amazon.com, and give digital editions for the Kindle Fire. In addition, Marvel has its own APP, and customers could buy digital comics through it. The special point is that, the comic forms design for different screens are different because of the screen sizes.
The usage of new technologies also helps of Marvel to promote its new films and characters. Some of the Chinese video websites will always pay for license fee of the series and films to attract Chinese Internet users. Though the money is not expensive enough to take an important position of all the revenue, it could still help to spread the new MCU built by Marvel to all over the world.
Conclusions
The counterattack of Marvel should be a gambling. Several years ago, no one can predict its gorgeous achievement of today. In some opinions, $4 billion is too high a price to pay for Marvel, based on the Graham and Dodd valuation (Calandro, 2010). However, most of the comments today think the deal of Disney was extremely great. The existing films have shown the potential of Super-Heroes and other studios are obviously learning the MCU of Marvel. The significant point is that Marvel has been seized the first opportunity, but the other studios are just imitating it. Therefore, if Marvel could keep creating the new trend in the area, it may always at the top place of the whole industry.
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