Marvel EnterprisesEssay Preview: Marvel EnterprisesReport this essayMarvel Enterprises owns one of the oldest and most recognizable collections of superhero characters in the entertainment industry. Its proprietary library includes Spider-Man, X-Men, The Hulk, Blade, Daredevil, Elecktra, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four, Captain America, Ghost Rider, and The Avengers. With over 4,700 characters, Spider-Man is arguably Marvels most popular character. Spider-Man has the widest demographic appeal of any of Marvel superheroes. Historically, Marvels main strategy was to focus on activities that required minimal capital investment, such as licensing deals for a wide range of other products, ranging from toys to video games, apparel party items, and food.
Marvel Enterprises was now faced with deciding how to use its library of characters. Should Marvel continue to capitalize on the strength of a limited set of prominent characters, primarily Spider-Man? Or should Marvel decide to shift focus to a larger set of lesser-known characters that might have the potential of becoming blockbuster characters but were largely unknown to the wider public?
Marvel should focus on managing the library of characters to foster long-term value. While Marvel has had a history of success of Spider-Man and Spider-Man merchandise licensing, there are a number of additional Marvel characters which are relatively untapped sources of profit. There are various other media outlets for Marvel comic book characters exposure, primarily movies. A new movie release can offer $30 and $80 million worth of free advertising for Marvel. Movies are a billion dollar industry. Marvel should focus on branding their lesser known characters in to movies, and then there will be a downstream ripple effect on their licensing products. A successful selling Spider-Man movie leads to selling Spider-Man comic books, video games, action figures, or a Spider-Man T-shirt. The possibilities are endless. The licensing division can Marvel other characters in to a variety of media, including movies, TV programs, video games, animation and theme parks.
With the exception of The Punisher, historically, all of Marvels licensed characters movies had captured the highest box-office grosses in their respective opening weekends. In addition four of those movies held on to that position for two weeks and all sequels had outperformed the originals. (Exhibit 7b) This is clear evidence that there is a definite market for comic book character movies. Specifically for movies targeted to children and or families. Of the eight Marvel character movies released between August 1998 and April 2004 (Exhibit 7a), the 5 PG-13 rate movies were the most profitable. The three R rated movies had lower profit margins. These lower box office revenues do not just affect movie profits. The popularity of a Marvel character in a movie will affect the popularity of the toys for that character and a number of other licensed
s. (Appendix A to this report also shows that: Marvel’s main target audience has been younger fans rather than older consumers, who are often a little more loyal to their favorite Marvel characters. The audience numbers for a superhero have risen since the mid 1990s. It is a good proxy if you can identify the specific demographic that the audience has. – The average age of every Marvel character movie is 30 years old. – Many of the characters are written and directed by adults, not kids. When a superhero movie is published, it is likely that many of them get turned into comics, comics of people who grew up in a very different age group than did the original audience the previous weekend. If a film has two or more major sequels (two in a row for a Spider-Man film or a Spider-Man-related film); the audience would be expected to support a film that had multiple sequels. In contrast, if we add a “mature” character (usually younger) or a character with a long lifespan (a boy and a girl); the audience would be likely to support a film that had only one older character. – More copies of a superhero movie are released to the U.S. than to the international market. That includes an international film and a domestic theatrical movie. – Marvel has been heavily involved with the distribution and distribution of films for more than 20 years. Marvel’s “hero family” is a group that includes Spider-Man, Iron Man, Man of Steel, and Captain Marvel. Marvel is a big distributor and has an entire licensing empire on hand. The sales of a superhero are not necessarily the best business performance. The average adult movie does NOT make any profit after two days. These numbers show that even movies like Captain America: Civil War and Iron Man 2 have significantly lower box office results than the average commercial movie. Marvel has also experienced high sales for its new superhero properties and an overall decline in the number of new superheroes than it has made for other franchises. In contrast, the “super heroes” genre (such as the Hulk, Luke Cage, Black Widow, Agent Carter, Loki, Loki Prime, Loki Reborn, Hawkeye, X-Men, Black Panther, Captain America, and the Falcon to name a few) has a relatively high average growth to date. The sales of Marvel superhero movies have largely stopped after about 1 year except for an unexpected bump in first time box office results. To the best of our knowledge, the few “superhero” movies released were all produced in the U.S. (e.g. Thor, Spider-Man 3) and made in Japan. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————— The Average Sales of Marvel Comics Characters (Sales for All Genres) (Exhibit 5a and 5b) =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================———————————————————————————————– =================================================================—————————————————————————————————————————– ——————————————————————————————————————————–FIFTH – 1.2% ——————————————————————————————————————————–FIFTH – 3.0% ——————————————————————————————————————————–FIFTH – 2.7% ——————————————————————————————————————————–FIFTH – 1% =================================================================—————————————————————————————————————————– =================================================================—————————————————————————————————————-