Devoted to show business and the entertainment industry

Marvel, while making money on the majority of films, has taken in far more than could have from terrible deals made with the studios.

Now they are taking a huge risk with potential great rewards as they have decided to launch a radical new approach to its business model. Up until now Marvel (MVL) has licensed its creations; with studios like Fox and Sony making the movies and taking most the risk and also profits.

Most of the deals made by Marvel with the studios only provide around 2 to 10 percent profit. Yet Marvel has grown tired of this smaller take based upon characters they have created.

They have decided in response to this that they are going to make themselves into an independent film studio. Now it will make its own movies. As a matte of fact Marvel reports that its first films are already being  developed; with the first expected to launch in early 2008.

It is reported that the first releases will probably be a new-to-the-movies character called Iron Man and a sequel to the Hulk. I hope they go with Iron Man first as it should be a great success in this digital creation age. Hulk was one of the biggest dud action movies I have ever seen. To me this is a huge mistake to start off with.

The huge gamble that Marvel is taking was securing $500 million financing for its filmmaking venture. Another condition is that if they bomb, they could even lose control of their rights to the characters they created.

As it says here: "The move is as fraught with peril as a Spidey showdown with Kraven the Hunter. For one thing, it comes as the movie industry faces declining ticket sales - down 8.9 percent last year - and rising competition for consumer attention from myriad new forms of entertainment, from iPods to Web shorts to coming attractions like first-run movies on home TV."

I like their guts and attitude, again the only thing I don't like about it so far is the Hulk obsession. Does anybody really want to see a sequel of that? And why would they take such a huge chance on something that has alreaday failed? What do you think?