Marvel Entertainment Ready To Lead Action Genre

Marvel Entertainment, Inc plans to lead the action film area by delivering solid comic book superhero adaptations to the screen. Marvel comic books always had the most interesting characters, now Marvel Studios wants to dominate the action superhero genre with its comic book stars. Moreover, whereas Marvel licensed "Spider-Man," to an independent studio, now it has its own studio to produce films. "Iron Man" will probably end up doing a billion dollars in all around sales and "The Incredible Hulk" was a solid hit.

Marvel has set up a $525 million debt line with Merrill Lynch & Company to finance production and advertising for "Iron Man 2," "Thor" and "The Avengers." This arrangement makes good business sense because Marvel's licensing of the three "Spider-man" blockbusters, financed by Sony, did $2.5 billion worldwide, yet Marvel reaped on $30 million each or $90 million total out of that take. (The Wall Street Journal 6/13/08)