When Disney recently announced that it was ending its exclusivity deal with Netflix and moving all Disney- and Pixar-branded content over to a new Disney-owned streaming service, it was unclear exactly whether Big D would also walk off with the Marvel and Star Wars movies that Netflix currently gets exclusive streaming rights to. At the time, Netflix was still hoping it could reach some sort of custody deal with Disney, but it looks like Iron Man and Kylo Ren will be living with Mickey and Nemo at their new house. [More]
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Even Though They’re Breaking Up, Netflix Still Wants To Share Disney’s Marvel & Star Wars Movies
By 8.11.17
Like a couple that decides to go its separate way but where they both want to keep the dog, Netflix says it is talking to Disney about holding on to its deal to continue streaming Marvel and Star Wars movies after the two part ways at the end of 2018. [More]
Disney Ditching Netflix (Eventually), Plans To Start Competing Streaming Service
By 8.8.17
Disney (and its Marvel division) have had a brief but good run with Netflix, resulting in a slew of original content and reasonably timely streaming video access to huge titles from the Star Wars series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Pixar, and Disney’s flagship studio. But today Disney said it is pulling the plug on this relationship — eventually — as it plans to launch a competing streaming service in the next year. [More]
Netflix Is Now In The Comic Book Business; Buys Company Behind Kick-Ass, Kingsman
By 8.7.17
Comic book characters are a big business, responsible for billions of dollars a year in movie and TV revenue. Netflix knows this fact first-hand from its various, exclusive Marvel shows, but now the streaming video giant has gone a step further, actually popping off to the shop and picking up a comic book company to call its own. [More]
Several Marvel Twitter Pages Fall Victim To Same Group That Hacked Netflix’s Account
By 12.21.16
On the same day that Netflix’s U.S. Twitter account was briefly compromised, the group responsible for that attack is taking responsibility for hacking several Marvel social media pages as well. [More]
Sony, Ghostface Killah Must Face Copyright Lawsuit Over Use Of ‘Iron Man’ Cartoon Theme
By 7.29.16
The composer of the theme song used in the 1966 cartoon version of Marvel’s Iron Man won a minor victory today, with a federal appeals court ruling that Sony Music and rapper Ghostface Killah must face the composer’s claim that they violated his copyright by sampling the 50-year-old ditty without his permission. [More]
Disney Not Happy About Snow White, Captain America Seen At Chinese Theme Park
By 5.31.16
Competition is great: when there are more options for something, consumers usually come out ahead. That applies to entertainment theme parks as much as to anything else: if there are more places to go, crowds will be mitigated, prices will be competitive, and amenities will probably improve. But “competing” doesn’t actually mean “duplicating the other guy’s stuff and displaying it at my place instead.” At least, it’s not supposed to. [More]
Disney, Lucasfilm, Sanrio Sue Makers Of Counterfeit Marvel, Star Wars, Hello Kitty Cake Frosting
By 9.4.15
We’ve all seen local bakeries and supermarkets selling cakes decorated with the images of trademarked cartoon/movie/comic characters and not many people seem to care that the decorator may not have permission to use these images. But there’s also a difference between someone’s hand-iced Captain America cake and a company that uses movie stills and promotional art to make pre-fab cake frosting sheets. Thus, Disney, Lucasfilm and Sanrio — tired of seeing cakes featuring the unauthorized faces of Yoda, Iron Man, and Hello Kitty — have teamed up to sue two Michigan men for trademark and copyright infringement. [More]
Amazon’s Deal With Marvel Adds 12,000 Comics To The Kindle Store
By 6.19.15
Kindle users who’d rather pick up a comic book than a literary tome will now have 12,000 more options with a new deal between Amazon and Marvel. The e-commerce giant announced a partnership last night that will allow fans to download single issues of the publisher’s comics directly from its store. [More]
Netflix Will Release Audio Description Tracks For ‘Daredevil’ So Blind Fans Can Enjoy The Show Too
By 4.15.15
Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand or this is your first time using the Internet, you probably know enough about Marvel’s Daredevil series to know that the hero is blind. The thing is, if Matt Murdock existed in real life without any of the comic book powers he possesses on the new Netflix show, until yesterday he wouldn’t have been able to fully enjoy his own kick-punching romps through the bad guys of Hell’s Kitchen. [More]
Marvel, Awesome Scientists Help Kids Build 3D-Printed Mechanical Hands And Bring Out Their Inner Superhero
By 2.6.15
The dream of becoming a super hero in real life is one that’s shared by millions of kids around the world. But for eight patients of Houston’s Shriners Hospital for Children who are missing part or all of a hand, they got to be the super heroes in reality, teaming up with bioengineers from Rice University and Marvel to build mechanical hands made from plastic parts printed on 3-D printers. [More]
Disney Considering Marvel, ‘Star Wars’ Streaming Services
By 2.4.15
With its involvement in Dish’s Sling TV service, Disney has shown that it’s willing to experiment with making its high-value cable programming available to consumers who don’t want traditional cable TV. So why not look into that same approach for its marquee movie titles? [More]
Good Thing Comics Fans Don’t Mind Buying Slightly Mutilated New Books
By 10.26.12
We put out a call for purportedly “new” books mangled in the shipping process by Amazon, but Kain wanted us to see what happened when he tried to buy a graphic novel at Barnes & Noble. This book had different characters’ origin stories condensed into single pages, so of course they slapped a giant anti-theft sticker right in the middle of one of those pages. But that’s okay–it’s not like people who buy comics care about keeping the books in prime condition, right? [More]
Target Sells Lots Of Reservation Cards For ‘The Avengers’ Blu-Ray, Forgets To Order Discs
By 10.4.12
Target stores offered customers the opportunity to reserve their copy of the super-awesome Blu-Ray box set of “The Avengers” by purchasing reservation cards in advance. What the stores forgot to do, though, was actually stock the discs. It’s fine if they want to only get a few copies of a hot new movie in and sell them to employees’ nephews or people banging on the door at opening time or whatever. It’s not cool to sell reservation cards that you don’t intend to honor. [More]
Did You Buy Disney Or Marvel Vitamins? There Might Be A Refund Waiting For You
By 8.14.12
I prefer to get my vitamins the old-fashioned way (i.e., in the shape of Flintstones characters), but for those of you who prefer your vitamins in the shape of Disney characters or Marvel superheros, the Federal Trade Commission wants you to know you might be due a refund. [More]
Parents Group Calls Happy Meal Version Of The Human Torch A "Horrifying Spectacle"
By 8.10.10
I’m having trouble telling whether the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood is serious, or whether someone at the organization saw that Venture Brothers episode and got confused, so I’ll just describe what they’re doing and you can decide for yourselves. The group has launched a letter writing campaign to demand that McDonald’s stop giving out Marvel superhero toys, specifically The Thing and The Human Torch, because they’re too violent. [More]
Amazon Offers $25 Gift Card To Disappointed Comics Fans After Epic Price Glitch
By 3.10.10
On Sunday, I heard rumblings of a wondrous event from my comics-loving friends. Amazon had marked lots of great graphic novels and other goodness from Marvel and independent publishers down to impossibly low prices. Lower than wholesale prices. Think $15 for a book that normally costs $125. Was it a clearance? A fire sale? A database error? Who cares? Time to go shopping. [More]
Comic Book Prices Creep To $3.99 Per Issue
By 1.29.09
Over at sci-fi publisher website Tor.com, Heather Massey points out that the ceiling on comic book pricing is being steadily pushed higher by the big publishers, especially Marvel, which now prices individual issues of some of its titles at $3.99 each.
