According to The Hollywood Reporter, comic-book publisher Marvel (NYSE: MVL) has come up with another character set to exploit from its vast library. I've never heard of this title, but apparently a comic book called Runaways, which has been around since 2002 and has developed a following. It has been tapped by management to be source material for a movie. It has something to do with teenagers who have parents that are evil villains. This sends them for a loop, causing them to run away and to attempt to process this shock to their systems. I don't really know a lot about this universe.
And that's what fascinates me about it from the perspective of being a shareholder. It both frightens and excites me at the same time. One of the biggest issues surrounding Marvel has been the oft-mentioned value of the company's 5,000 characters. Some have pointed out that, once you get through Hulk, X-Men, Spider-Man ,Iron Man and a few of the other major hitters, Marvel really doesn't have any other big properties to lean on in terms of generating viable movie franchises. For instance, is Ant-Man going to be a huge success at the movies? For that matter, what the heck is an Ant-Man anyway? Wasn't he made fun of in an old Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1970's? I sometimes do have some reticence when thinking about characters such as Thor, Captain America, and, yes, Ant-Man. Will they be accepted by the movie-going youth as readily as Iron Man recently was at the multiplex?
This is why I think it's a neat idea to start testing the perception of Wall Street investors by announcing the film adaptation of a lesser-known quantity. I mean, I haven't heard of this Runaways thing, at least. But maybe something a little more modern compared to the Captain America character will resonate perfectly fine with the youthful target audience of today. Perhaps Marvel will find out the true value of its brand equity when it slaps its name on something that hasn't been promoted over several decades. It's difficult to say at this stage, and I'll concede that it might be a bit early to begin evaluating this concept when investors are more worried at the moment over the potential success or failure of the new Hulk picture that is set to open very shortly.
Still, if Marvel wants to compete with big guns such as Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), then it needs to broaden its horizons and move beyond Wolverine.
I may not know much about Runaways, but I know it's smart for Marvel to begin looking for new franchises that aren't based on radioactive spider bites or anger brought on by high doses of gamma radiation. Branching out will be a useful corporate experiment. So long as the concepts are strong and can lend themselves to tentpole moviemaking, I am, for the most part, behind the adaptation of comic books that I've never heard of.
Disclosure: I own shares of Disney and Marvel; positions can change at any time.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-27-2008 @ 12:36PM
David Goulet said...
Thanks to modern visual effects we now have a viable new genre: the superhero flick. As long as the screenwriters can provide fresh charcter arcs for the men and women behind the masks, it will be a robust genre. If they rely simply on the s/fx and snazzy costumes (hello Daredevil and Catwoman), the genre will fade out.
The Runaways should resonate with the current youth audience, who more or less see their parents as the ones who ruined the planet (just like super villians).
Marvel always did a better job of making their characters relevant to the culture of the time.
If I'm an investor (which I'm not) I'm going to stick around for the ride - - but the minute the scripts start to regurgitate the same old formula then its time to invest elsewhere.