Spinning a New Web
Marvel Enterprises’ mid-1990s tribulations – corporate turmoil, public embarrassment, courtroom dramas, giving away the licensing rights to Men in Black for a song – are themselves worthy of a made-for-TV movie. But the company, which emerged from bankruptcy in 1998 and has since been creating new deals for its comic-book characters, doesn’t have time to script any more properties these days.
Its plate is pretty full already.
With five major motion pictures in development (and seven more in negotiation), a pile of promotions on the horizon, and licensing deals galore, things are looking up at Marvel. The New York City-based fantasy character empire has emerged from bankruptcy with a new executive team and a new corporate strategy. “What’s different about us? Virtually everything,” says president/ceo Peter Cuneo. “Except our 4,700 characters.”
Since joining Marvel nine months ago, packaged goods vet Cuneo (he’s worked at Remington Products, Black & Decker, and Bristol-Myers Squibb) has quickly built a branding and marketing team to drive the company into new promotional and licensing frontiers. The company hired Colgate-Palmolive vet Michael Dichter as senior vp-marketing, and brought back former executive Bill Jemas as president of publishing and new media.
Before bankruptcy, Marvel often traded its licenses for up-front cash or small fees – which is how Men in Black became somebody else’s success story. These days, the company is looking for equity stakes in ventures and trying to self-produce some of its content. “We obviously can’t pay for a $100-million movie ourselves,” says Cuneo. “But we can afford television and other things.”
Marvel is also looking for long-term deals for the first time, and initiating branding strategies “to manage the lives of our characters,” says Cuneo.
Movie deals with four different studios are in the works: Fox’s X-Men comes out next month (and The Fantastic Four is on the development schedule), and Sony Pictures’ long-awaited Spider-Man is slated for Thanksgiving 2001. New Line Cinema is planning Blade 2 for 2002, Universal has The Incredible Hulk on the calendar.
MUTANTS AMONG US
Marvel’s first big-budget major motion picture (Cuneo calls the film his company’s Bar Mitzvah), X-Men features the comic book-based team of mutants fighting the forces of evil. The film’s buzz is strong: Its trailer was downloaded 500,000 times during its first weekend online in March.
While publicity for the movie will be heavy and licensed merchandise abundant, promotional partnerships will be light, due to Fox’s decision to push up the original premiere date by six months to July 14. “There’s no use crying over spilled milk,” says Fox executive vp-publicity and promotions Jeffrey Godsick. “Most important is to find the right date for a movie. Everything else comes second.”
Next month’s X-Men begins Marvel’s return to the spotlight.
“The move hurt us,” says Cuneo. “But on the bright side, we’ve learned from it.”
One promotion already underway is an effort with Paramus, NJ-based Toys “R” Us, which is adding an online X-Men section to its Web site with news and information, printable coloring book-type pictures, downloadable computer wallpaper, and a bevy of pre-movie toys. On the licensing side, the X-Men will show up in everything from the usual toys and apparel to chewable vitamins, motorcycles, videogames, and trading cards.
X-Men merchandise from Marvel’s Toy Biz manufacturing division could generate $50 million to $75 million in revenues this year, according to industry estimates. (Marvel’s total revenues rose to $319.6 million in 1999, up from $232.1 million in 1998.) An animated X-Men TV series will launch this fall, produced by Marvel and distributed by Warner Bros.
SWING TIME
Marvel is learning from past misfortunes and is determined not to let another tie-in, cash cow, or publicity vehicle slip through its fingers. The company last month began an early promotional/licensing tour for its next hot property, the live-action Spider-Man.
The path to getting Spider-Man to the silver screen was filled with more tangled webs than a night out with the superhero. The saga began in 1985, when Marvel gave the now-defunct Cannon Group rights to make a Spider-Man movie. Those rights later ended up in the hands of 21st Century Film, which unloaded home-video rights that were eventually acquired by Sony and TV rights ultimately picked up by Viacom. In 1991, Carolco joined the mess, inking another deal with Marvel for a Spidey movie. MGM later bought the rights to Spider-Man from bankrupt 21st Century and Carolco.
The imbroglio turned into lengthy litigation that didn’t end until Sony and Marvel agreed in March ’99 to produce the movie through a 50-50 joint venture – just days before they were set to clash in front of a jury.
Why the big deal over Spidey? Because he’s that cool. While Batman’s a dark crusader and Superman is middle-aged, Spiderman is young, hip, funny, and sexy. The superhero’s appeal skews across genders and ages. The flick is expected to bring a windfall of box office and merchandising cash to Marvel and Sony. (Expect marquee marketing partners to geton board early.) A Spider-Man television series is also in the works.
While Spider-Man may appeal to a broad demographic spectrum, many of Marvel’s characters don’t. Cuneo acknowledges that most of the company’s properties are for males 12 and up, but says Marvel will use licensing and promotional deals to introduce its characters to new consumer segments.
“The amount of exposure through promotion will increase dramatically for us in the future,” he says. The aforementioned X-Men animated TV series, for example, will be tweaked to target a younger eight-and-up audience. Packaged goods makers are signing on for the series, says Jemas, who will roll out a comic-book sampling program this fall for Ultimate Marvel, an initiative that will re-introduce many of the company’s core superheroes as teenagers.
Although the company’s plate is fairly heavy, Marvel is trying to digest it one bite at a time. Jemas says his team is focusing only on X-Men and Spider-Man right now. Deals for other properties, such as the already planned X-Men sequels and a slew of efforts on marvel.com, will have to wait.
