Marvel acquires new credit, plans to produce ten new movies

Comic book giant Marvel has announced that it has secured a new $525 credit facility which will allow it to develop as many of ten of its franchises into movies, without having to license the properties to other studios.

The ten character franchises covered by the deal are Captain America, The Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak and Dagger, Dr. Strange, Power Pack, Hawkeye and Shang-Chi.

They will be distributed by Viacom subsidiary Paramount - in contrast to previous movies based on franchises like Spider-Man, which were licensed to studios such as Sony Pictures or 20th Century Fox.

The first film to be produced under the deal will appear in Summer 2008 - and given the success of videogames based on comic book movies, it seems a certainty that each of the films will have at least one tie-in game.

The deal means that Marvel will have overall creative control over its portfolio at last, with the company having sole control over the "green light" on any given feature, and also means that videogame creators will now be working directly with Marvel on their tie-in titles.