WORK IN LOCKDOWN

DISNEY&MARVEL

Black Panther was produced by Marvel Studios, who became a subsidiary of Disney in 2008. They are also the film’s distributor, which makes this a good example of vertical integration.

Marvel has historically sold options on individual characters or comic book titles e.g. Spiderman to TV and then to Paramount (and who is still partly owned by Sony). Black Panther was one of those owned fully by Marvel; in 2009 a new team began developing T’Challa and lesser known characters.

In early 2000s, Marvel Studios began to produce films, starting with Blade(1998) and the X-Men films (2000).

When Disney bought Marvel, they agreed to minimal creative in uence over Marvel products.

in 2013, Marvel also signed a deal with streaming service Netflix to develop TV series for six more characters (including Daredevil and Punisher who had already been made into films). This may have caused conflict with Disney, who has their own streaming channel, and in 2019 Netflix cancelled their Marvel shows.

DISNEY

Disney are adept at identifying nuanced demographic groups and strategies for targeting them. Many of their products are ‘intercultural’ i.e. they strongly represent one cultural tradition but in a way that resonates with audiences from other cultural / national / ethnic backgrounds.

Disney has used recent Nielsen research to challenge conventional ideas about the ethnic diversity in mainstream America. 53% of Americans live in a multicultural or ‘blended’ household. 67% indicated they were enthusiastic about encountering and experimenting with ‘diverse cultures’.