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Marvel Entertainment: Marvel Studios

Amy J. Keller

June 28, 2009

This case study focuses on the Marvel Studios franchise. Marvel Entertainment took a huge risk when it decided to stop licensing its’ characters to outside production companies and develop their own in-house productions via Marvel Studios. This study focuses on the history of Marvel Studios and what harm or benefit has come from the creation of Marvel Studios and the expansion into filmmaking.

Biography/History

Marvel Entertainment, Inc. is a prominent character-based entertainment company that is worldwide. The have a collection of 5,000 characters that cover a 70-year company span and sever media types (comics, toys, movies, et cetera). “Marvel’s strategy is to leverage its franchises in a growing array of opportunities around the world, including feature films, consumer products, toys, video games, animated television, direct-to-DVD and online” (Viacom). Marvel Studios mission is to “develop and manage entertainment projects that leverage Marvel’s vast universe of creative content” (Marvel.com).

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Marvel had licensed out a number of their characters for movies and direct-to-TV productions. Very few of these are remembered today. One that you might recall is Howard the Duck; it didn’t do so well in the box office. The reasoning behind such failures was the lack of research the company put into it’s licensing (Stax).

Marvel Studios was created in the 1990s and it run by Avi Arad (President and CEO). Prior to heading Marvel Studios, Avi Arad had become one of the world’s most predominant toy designers, he produced children’s programming and had created dozens of successful products. Arad is titled with Producer and or Executive Producer in all of the Marvel films (Stax).

With the creation of Marvel Studios and the

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