Yahoo News posted this:

LOS ANGELES – The Walt Disney Co. says it is acquiring Marvel Entertainment Inc. for $4 billion in cash and stock, bringing characters like Iron Man and Spider-Man into the Disney family.

Under the deal, Disney will acquire ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters.

Disney said Monday that Marvel shareholders will receive $30 per share in cash plus 0.745 Disney shares for every Marvel share they own.

It said the boards of Disney and Marvel have both approved the transaction, but it requires an antitrust review and the approval of Marvel shareholders.

Wow, this is really surprising if it turns out to be true. Especially if they sold the whole kitten-caboodle for 4 billion dollars.

Budgetron here with a quick addendum to this post.  Let’s all think about the awesomeness of this news, shall we?  Now, I know a lot of you think that Disney is the devil, and anyone could easily make that claim based on what the money handlers have done, I’m sure.  BUT!  How many of you would say Pixar is the devil?  No one!  (Or at least you better not)  Well, Pixar’s own resident creative genius, John Lasseter is chief creative officer at Disney.  And just think of what Pixar or Disney under Lasseter’s direction could do with Marvel characters if given the chance.

And think about how awesome the latest Marvel produced movies have been compared to the Fox/Sony produced Marvel movies…now, with “the devil” owning Marvel, they may have the muscle necessary to buy/fenagle back the rights to produce Spider-Man/X-Men/etc. movies whose rights had been bought prior to Marvel producing their own masterpieces.  This is exciting no matter how you slice it.

UPDATE:  Marvel inker superstar Tim Townsend posted the following on his DeviantArt page:

“Just talked to Joe Quesada and he assured me that this is just like the PIXAR deal and that nothing about the way we do business will change. Assuming DISNEY sticks to that agreement then this could ultimately be a very good thing for Marvel and comics in general. We shall see!”

Hey folks, Arse-bot here. Here are a few updates the good folks over at SHH! have posted:

UPDATE #1: In a conference call, the companies said that the deals for movies for characters at other studios (Spider-Man, X-Men, etc.) will stay in place under the terms set by Marvel and the other studios.

UPDATE #2: John Lasseter met with Marvel last week about a possible team-up between Marvel and Pixar and got “pretty excited, pretty fast.” They say there’s definitely an opportunity there.

UPDATE #3: The deal with Paramount Pictures to distribute “Iron Man 2,” “Thor,” “Captain America” and “The Avengers” stays in place as well, but Disney would like to self-distribute down the line. “When the time comes we’ll take a closer look at it.” It was actually stated that the deal still included five films, so that is one more film after “The Avengers.”