The document discusses various aspects of ownership and financing within the film industry. It provides details about the Disney acquisition of Marvel Entertainment in 2009, including that Disney wanted to appeal to male audiences. It examines how the deal increased Disney's power as an oligopoly and may negatively impact other major film studios. The document also explores sources of funding for films, such as product placement, sponsorship deals, and public/private investments. Development funds and film funding schemes that support independent films are described.

1. Unit 8
Assignment 1b
Hajar Abdullah
http://btecacland.wordpress.com

2. What companies were involved? What are
the companies involved famous for
•
•
•
The companies involved was Disney, which is a parent company and it bought
Marvel Entertainment, which is now a subsidiary company as it belongs to Disney.
Disney also owns Walt Disney Studios, Disney Music Group, Disney Theatrical
Group, Disney-ABC Television Group, Radio Disney, ESPN Inc., Disney Interactive
Media Group, Disney Consumer Products, Disney India Ltd., The Muppets
Studio, Pixar Animation Studios, UTV Software Communications, and Lucasfilm.
Marvel Entertainment also has subsidiaries within it, like Marvel Studios, Marvel
Animation and MVL Productions LCC.
Walt Disney is famous for Pirates of the Caribbean Dead man’s chest, Alice in
wonderland, The lion king, The chronicles of Narnia, Tangled and Cars.
Marvel Entertainment is famous for the Avengers, Iron man, Spiderman, Men in
Black and X-Men.

3. When and why did the deal take
place?
• The deal between Walt Disney and Marvel took place 31st
August 2009. The deal took place so that Disney could sell
Marvel’s characters and properties through a range of media
formats and different markets. In addition, it gives Disney an
opportunity to gain a male target audience. They have
content that appeals to young and teen girls but they didn’t
really have much content that appeals to buys. Through this
way, they can gain extra money.

4. How has the deal increased the power or influence of
the company within the film industry – is there any
evidence of a monopoly or oligopoly – if so please
explain?
• The deal has increased the power and influence of Walt
Disney through various ways. They can now target boys and so
can get even more people interested in their content. They
also dominate more of the film and media market now. So
they are an even bigger oligopoly.

5. What do you think the impact will be on
the other major film companies?
• Marvel and Walt Disney's deal will impact other major film companies as
many major film companies like universal and paramount have deals with
marvel. In addition, Disney now has a chance to gain more audience and
so this will negatively impact on the major film companies because there’s
a risk of people not being interested in them anymore so they have to
work harder to make interesting films.

6. What are the key issues with this
ownership deal find at least 3 issues- this
will require you to research.
• 1st issue:One of the main issues that many marvel fans were worried
about is that Disney will try to make marvel characters similar to Disney
characters. For example, making Spiderman like prince charming.
• 2nd issue: Another issue about this ownership deal is the money. Walt
Disney paid $4 billion to Marvel and there’s no guarantee that they
haven’t overpaid them and will badly effect their finances.
• 3rd issue: There are existing deals between Marvel and other major film
companies. For example, Universal already has a license to have marvel
characters in their theme park, and they also have deals with
Paramount, Fox and Universal for future films.

7. Summarise what you have learnt about
how ownership practices work within the
film industry.
• There are different types of ownerships in the film industry. First of
all, some companies like 21st century fox and Universal are oligopolies as
they dominate the film industry. They are called major film companies.
There are also parent companies like Disney. This means that they own
subsidiaries. For example, they own Marvel entertainment, Lucasfilm and
the Muppets studio, to name a few. Working title films is a subsidiary as it
is owned by Universal studios. There is also horizontal and vertical
integration. Horizontal integration is when a studio owns a range of
companies at the same stage. Disney has horizontal integration as it owns
a number of production companies like Marvel and Lucasfilm. Vertical
Integration is when a studio owns companies at each level. For
example, Warner Bros. have vertical integration as it owns Warner Bros.
International Cinemas, Warner Bros. Entertainment Group, Warner
Independent pictures, new line cinema and other companies as well.

8. What are the different ways in which the
FILM industry makes money from
audiences
• The film industry makes money from the audience in a number of ways.
• Product placement: This is when a company or manufacturer pays the film
to place their products in the film and so the film will gain money for
advertising the products.
• Sponsorship: Sometimes a company will give a studio money for their film.
For example, subway sponsors hunger games. And so, they now can use
hunger names in their adverts and so gain more customers.
• Private investment: when money comes to the company from a financial
investor, company, instead of it coming from the government.
• Development funds: This is when money is given to a filmmaker when
they are doing a new project.
• Corporate investment: This is when corporate funds are invested directly
into external start up companies.

9. What is meant by product placement – what
famous examples are there of films that have
used product placement.
• Product placement is when a company pays a film company so that they
could show their brands in a film. For example, in the film Back to the
future 2, it shows Marty travelling to the future and finding special lace
free Nike shoes and a Pepsi perfect. This is product placement as it
advertises the two brands and so increases the chance of the brand being
more popular.

10. How does product placement help films to make
money (explore a big blockbuster film)?
• When Back to the future uses product placement; it gains money from
each company. For example they use, Nike, Pepsi, coca cola, Mattel and
many other products. So each company pays them a certain amount of
money for that and so the movie has a bigger budget and can be better
quality.

11. Where do Independent film companies get their
funding – explore development funds, film funding
schemes etc. Explain how development funds and film
funding schemes work.
• Independent film companies get their funding through various ways. One
way is development funding. This is the money you get until your film is
being officially in pre production. It is the money you need to use for your
idea until you can present it to investors. In the UK, the BFI have
development funding for every stage of development until pre-production.
• Film funding is the money you get for production and pre-production. The
BFI also have a film fund for production and post production.

12. Explain how sponsorship deals work within the
film industry – provide an example of a
sponsorship deal for a recent film
• Avengers assemble was sponsored by Acura. This means that Acura cars
can state that they sponsor avengers assemble. This way, the movie will
have a bigger budget as Acura cars will pay them money and the company
can attract more customers and so more money.