Yes, Robert Downey Jr., Hugh Jackman, and Tobey Maguire will likely soon be fired, and the roles of Iron Man, Wolverine, and Spider-Man recast with various Jonas Brothers — but surely some good will from today’s $4 billion acquisition of Marvel by the Walt Disney Company? Maybe! On a conference call this morning, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company didn’t plan on interfering much with any of the in-development Marvel movies (“If it ain’t broke,†he said), and that all current third-party deals would remain in place until they expire (meaning Spider-Man will stay at Sony, Iron Man at Paramount, etc.), and only then will Disney bring them in-house.
Best of all is this potentially terrific news: Iger was asked about the possibility of a collaboration between Marvel and Pixar, to which he answered that Pixar’s John Lasseter had recently met with Marvel executives and “the group got pretty excited pretty fast†— “sparks will fly,†Iger said. If they can make our photo-illustration a reality, we promise not to complain when Zac Efron is hired to play Nick Fury.
LIVE Disney Marvel Call [Media Memo]
Will Pixar Make a Marvel Movie? [Cinematical]