Dick Cook, the now-former chairman of Disney Studios, left the position this weekend after 38 years at the company; in his seven years as chairman, he was one of the more vocal early supporters of the now-popular digital 3-D format, and in large part responsible for both the creation of Guillermo del Toro's Double Dare You and the acquiring of Marvel.

Deadline Hollywood's Nikki Finke is reporting that not only was Cook fired from the position due to the recent lackluster performance of Disney movies at the box office, but that a possible frontrunner for his replacement is Marvel's Feige:

There's been a lot of talk that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige spent a lot of time with Disney CEO Bob Iger during the dealmaking to buy the company, and Feige impressed the hell out of Iger.

If Feige takes the position, it'll validate the talk of the Marvel/Disney deal being close to the Pixar/Disney deal even more; just as Pixar's John Lassetter became Disney's Chief Creative Officer, bringing Pixar culture to the parent company, so would Marvel culture become part of Disney's core operations with Feige's appointment.

The first lawsuit came within a day of the announcement of the sale, as shareholder Christine Vlatos filed a complaint in a Wilmington court seeking not only a court order to stop the sale, but also "unspecified damages" as a result of the announcement. It's a case that experts dismiss as unlikely to come to anything. But the same may not be true of a similar class action suit against the company:

According to the complaint the plaintiff alleges breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law by the Board of Directors of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (Public, NYSE:MVL) arising out of their attempt to sell Marvel Entertainment to Walt Disney Company. According to Marvel Entertainment the Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) has agreed to acquire Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:MVL) in a stock and cash transaction. Under the terms of the agreement and based on the closing price of Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) on August 28, 2009, Marvel shareholders (NYSE:MVL) would receive a total of $30 per share (NYSE:MVL) in cash plus approximately 0.745 Disney shares for each Marvel share they own. According to Marvel Entertainment based on the closing price of Disney stock (NYSE:DIS) on Friday, August 28, the transaction value is $50 per MVL share or approximately $4 billion. But according to a previous investigation by a law firm "the transaction appear[ed] to be unfair" to current investors of Marvel Entertainment, Inc. (Public, NYSE:MVL) "by failing to conduct an open and fair auction process for the Company in order to maximize shareholder value".

The announcement invites other Marvel shareholders to come forward to join the lawsuit.

(Via)

Launching today, US visitors to Vringo's website can download video ringtones starring Spider-Man, the Hulk, Wolverine, the X-Men and many other characters for video-ready mobile devices (Well, aside from iPhones, but additional devices are said to be coming soon) for just $1.99 each. We have to admit; we're suckers for the old 1960s Marvel cartoon theme songs, so it's kind of tempting...

Marvel Video Ringtones [Vringo]

One of the first questions that's worth asking is "Is anyone left?" It's hard to top the much-stated 5000+ characters contained in Marvel's IP, and it'd be a tough argument to suggest that there are any other comic publishers available who could offer anything even vaguely similar, especially considering that the larger companies that aren't DC or Marvel don't own the majority of their IP (Dark Horse, Image, and IDW all predominantly offer creator owned or licensed material); although purchasing one of those publishers may offer existing relationships with creators, it doesn't necessarily translate into anything that Disney (or any other company with large pockets) could immediately take advantage of.

(That said, if I were looking for a publisher purely for the IP rights and wasn't specifically looking for superheroes, I'd probably see if either Boom! Studios or Tokyopop were looking to be bought out; neither has an IP farm anywhere close to the size of Marvel's, but both have had some success coming up with new series and concepts that could easily be adapted into movies or television - at least, until Tokyopop's cutback "restructuring" last year, on their side. Or, of course, Rebellion, who own the 2000AD rights, which could definitely use some exploiting.)

If IP is really what's being looked for, Disney might want to follow Hollywood and go for toy and game companies; Hasbro has been positioning itself as more of a intellectual property generator than toy company since their deal with Universal Studios last year, after all, and with already successful properties like Transformers and GI Joe, they must be looking pretty tempting to any company wanting to buy an immediate in to existing markets right about now. Perhaps not as obvious, but arguably more worthwhile, a videogame publisher like Electronic Arts - owner of The Sims and Dead Space, amongst others - or Valve may not bring the instant brand awareness of Hasbro or Marvel, but unlike both, is currently creating new properties as successful as their Greatest Hits, which might be a better investment in the long run.

All of this conjecture, however, ignores the Bantha in the middle of the room: Lucasfilm.

The privately-owned Lucasfilm may not own have as many separate franchises as Marvel, but it has Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and there's definitely an argument to be made that Star Wars alone is worth as much as the entire Marvel Universe (Containing almost as many characters, and with the ability to spin out as many sub-franchises as it has, after all). More to the point, unlike Marvel, Lucasfilm is much more than an IP factory; alongside the movie studio, publishing arm, online division and animation department - all of which a self-respecting media juggernaut like Disney also has - it includes industry leaders Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, making them almost unique in terms of value add (Yes, Marvel may be the industry leader in comic book publishing, but how important is that to Disney's core business?).

It's extremely unlikely that Lucas would sell Lucasfilm, especially as he seems to have become interested in the possibilities television offers to him and the company. But everyone has their price, as the saying goes. The question is just how high Lucas' price would be - and whether anyone could afford it.