Marvel Entertainment (NYSE: MVL) announced yesterday that it had succeeded in securing a television deal for its movies with News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) cable entity FX. According to the corporate press release, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk are part of a deal that will include a total of five films from Marvel's self-financed slate of motion pictures.

This is a great announcement; I own shares in Marvel and I believe that there's a good chance that Iron Man and Hulk will do blockbuster business. While the company has increased its risk profile by directly entering the movie business by borrowing from a non-recourse facility to fund projects -- as opposed to just licensing its characters to studios like Sony (NYSE: SNE) -- the upside potential for the stock is awesome if these movies hit it big. FX has obviously given a vote of confidence to Marvel's Hollywood acumen by taking on five of the company's features for one of its media assets. The other thing that I really like about this deal is that FX will be offering some marketing support for the movies when they are in the midst of their theatrical release.

Iron Man will be distributed by Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Paramount Pictures, and The Incredible Hulk will be buoyed by General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal Pictures. I don't know about you, but I think Marvel has some nice partners in its quest to become a bona fide player in Hollywood.

Disclosure: I own shares in Marvel and General Electric.

Marvel uses its super powers to strike cable deal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.