I'm as big a Joe fan as I am Star Wars and I thought the first movie was pretty much a mess. The CGI looked terrible in parts and I still can't take the sinking ice.
I've read the rumor about Disney and Hasbro, and the article saying it probably wasn't going to happen.
My first though when I heard this is that Hasbro had no reason to sell. The Transformers movies where huge box office hits, they have a new Joe film coming up that they're pretty excited about, they just partnered with Rovio for the new Star Wars Angry Birds tabletop games, the Hub has been doing better and their sales of girls toys were up last quarter. The Avengers toy line seems to have done okay for them even if some of the other Marvel movies haven't, and they have a ****-ton of upcoming movies to do figures for.
The announcement of new Star Wars movies, and the fact they just extended the contract for 2 years, seems like just the shot in the arm that franchise needed and Hasbro is poised to take huge advantage of that. They also just opened the new Transformers 3D ride at Universal in CA and they're under construction on the new TF3D ride at Universal Orlando.
That's a lot of potential for the company to do really great things for the foreseeable future. So why, even if Disney was offering up a deal, would the shareholders be interested in selling? The company isn't really in trouble and with the chance that they could grow seems like a good thing.
On the other hand, Disney owning a toy company that has strong IPs like Transformers and MLP, and is already licensed to produce toys for LFL and Marvel, would only increase their bottom line. But the TF and GI Joe films are at Paramount so they'd have additional things to work out there. Plus, Disney does a lot of business with Mattel and I can't even begin to know what kinds of legal problems there could be by Disney owning Hasbro, Mattel's biggest competitor.
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