Disney Will Weaponize Fans If It Risks Being Broken Up
Marvel fans will do anything to protect their superheroes
Disney fans were overjoyed in 2015 when Disney and Sony announced they’d reached an agreement for Spider-Man to be rebooted and join Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The partnership generated billions in box office revenue for the studios, but last month they announced deal had been terminated — and fans were not happy.
Sony got the film rights to Spider-Man in 1998, but its Amazing Spider-Man films with Andrew Garfield struggled. To capitalize on Disney’s popular MCU, the two companies agreed Sony’s solo Spider-Man films would be co-produced by Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige with merchandising rights and five percent of the revenue going to Disney. Disney could also put the character in other MCU films, but Sony couldn’t put him in its related films, like last year’s Venom.
Fans were thrilled to see Spider-Man next to their other favorite superheroes, but their response to the corporate breakup has been instructive. It’s rumored the deal fell apart after Disney demanded a 50/50 revenue split on future solo Spider-Man films. Disney was willing to co-finance the films, but that would still mean significantly less profit for Sony on its highest-grossing property.
In the days after the news broke, more evidence emerged that laid the blame at Disney’s feet. Spider-Man: Far From Home is the final film in the MCU’s Phase Three and Feige, speaking at Disney’s D23 Expo fan event, said the deal “was never meant to last forever … we told the story we wanted to tell.” Disney had what it needed from Spider-Man and it’s refocusing away from the Avengers on other Marvel superhero franchises. Its steep demand was little more than an attempt to extract a one-sided deal from Sony instead of canceling it outright.
But that’s not how Marvel fans saw it. Many blamed Sony, making #SaveSpidermanFromSony trend soon after the news was announced and accusing Sony of not being able to make good Spider-Man films without Feige’s help. That completely ignored the praise for Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse — the latter of which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
This isn’t the first time Marvel fans have displayed a worrying devotion to their beloved media conglomerate. A few months ago, they participated in a campaign to make Avengers: Endgame the highest-grossing movie of all time, displacing James Cameron’s Avatar — a Fox property that’s also owned by Disney. Hardcore fans rewatched the film multiple times — one reported more than 100 viewings — which did little more than boost executives’ egos and further pad the profits of the company that dominates domestic box office.
Disney’s control of so many beloved franchises and studios is becoming a problem for other parts of the industry though. When Star Wars: The Last Jedi was released, Disney demanded 65 percent of ticket sales (studios usually take closer to 55 percent), required the film to be shown on a cinema’s largest screen for four weeks, and the cinemas couldn’t pull a screening from their schedule unless Disney gave them permission — otherwise Disney’s take would increase to 70 percent. Those strict terms meant some small cinemas couldn’t show the film at all. Disney also won’t license films more than 120 days after their theatrical release for special events, and recently announced similarly strict rules will apply for most of Fox’s catalog.
Between the percentage of the box office captured by Disney and the terms it’s pushing on cinemas, some analysts argue no company has had so much power over the industry since MGM in the 1930s. The power of studios in that period eventually led to antirust action in the form of the 1948 Paramount Consent Decrees, which forced the major studios to sell their theaters and restricted the punitive terms they could force on exhibitors. The consent decrees are still in place, but that hasn’t stopped the major media conglomerates from increasing their power and dominance in other ways — and politicians are starting to pay attention.
Senator Elizabeth Warren recently tweeted that the Disney-21st Century Fox and CBS-Viacom mergers raised “serious concerns for consumers, employees, and the entire sector,” and that the “the Department of Justice should be paying close attention.” Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders wrote that “after decades of consolidation and deregulation, just a small handful of companies control almost everything you watch, read, and download,” and that he would “institute an immediate moratorium on approving mergers of major media corporations” as federal agencies investigate whether antitrust action is necessary in response to “consolidation in print, television, and digital media.”
It seems only a matter of time before politicians get serious about antitrust enforcement to break up and regulate the massive companies controlling various sectors of the economy. The Walt Disney Company will not escape such an investiagation, and while its executives have strong incentives to stop that action, fans will also likely come to the defence of the conglomerate. They already turned on Sony and went to see a film over and over so it could earn nearly $3 billion for the entertainment giant, so it’s not hard to imagine they would do whatever Disney tells them to stop any action that could affect their beloved superhero franchise.
Marvel fans are adamant that only Disney can make good superhero films: Spider-Man, X-Men, and the DC films are the target of regular criticism. Some of it is warranted, but it’s clear they’re also motivated by a desire to see their franchise be the best, even if that means calling out flaws in other franchises that they’d happily ignore from Marvel Studios.
Disney makes entertaining films — that much is undeniable — but fans’ devotion to the brand is extreme. With antitrust action almost guaranteed if the Democrats retake the presidency in 2020, Disney will weaponize fans’ devotion to try to maintain their power over the film and media industries. But no matter how good a film franchise might be, that isn’t an excuse for one company to move closer and closer to a monopoly that inhibits culture and makes it difficult for independent producers and cinemas to survive.
