Disney's purchase of Marvel may have caught a lot of people by surprise, but it's really a no brainer. The big ticket items of the movie industry today is developing recognized brands into big screen movies, and Marvel is one of the biggest warehouses of recognized creative properties with proven big screen viability. That makes Marvel extremely valuable.

Marvel's financial turnaround since its dumpster days has been impressive, and while Marvel at this point is not marked for any notable creativity, it's fantastic at marketing its own properties to consumers, which is exactly what Disney wants.

The 4 billion dollars that Disney paid for Marvel is a bargain when you keep in mind that the 3 Spider Man movies alone made something in the neighborhood of two and a half billion worldwide, gross. Right now Marvel's properties are scattered among different studios. Disney has the cash and the resources to get a lot of Marvel movies made even in tough economy times, and even under Marvel's existing studio contracts, Disney now has a lot more leverage over its rivals.

Unlike the Pixar deal, Disney isn't buying a creative studio, it's buying access to a lot of IP's with high payoffs. And the Disney and Marvel deal is all the more appropriate because both are little more than sharks with other people's beloved IP's in their teeth.