The news that Disney is buying Marvel for $4 billion has taken the entertainment industry by surprise. But while the deal itself came out of nowhere, it’s not too shocking that these companies would see the benefit of coming together. They each involve an enormous universe full of characters, stories and, most importantly, licensing opportunities. And at a time when original plot ideas are difficult to come by, this acquisition could mean a surplus of comic book and film synopses based solely on the possibilities of team-ups, battles and other crossovers between the Disney and Marvel worlds.

To give you an idea of where this deal could lead, we’ve come up with ten potential movies that we’d love to see come out of the Disney-Marvel relationship. Check them out after the jump.
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If you buy the kids only one new video release this week, make it Pinocchio. Obviously. But if you have enough spending money to buy two, pick up Howard the Duck as well. Finally on DVD in America (with a Special Edition no less), the infamous flop is anything but a great film. Yet it is hardly one of the worst films of the 1980s, despite its reputation.

For the past 23 years, I’ve stood by my childhood love for Howard the Duck, constantly acknowledging that I even owned Ellis Weiner’s novelization of the film. Technically, the best reason to defend the movie’s existence is that it directly led to the creation of Pixar. But this reason doesn’t influence anyone to watch the thing. So, in order to defend the movie’s onscreen worth, I’ve come up with ten points for why you should pick up the new Howard the Duck disc and not feel at all guilty about doing so.
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Many smart cinephiles and comic book geeks will avoid watching Watchmen this weekend. Not to avoid the crowds of opening weekend, and not to patiently await word of mouth from friends and reactions from critics. No, these bright few will ignore the out-of-season blockbuster event because there is absolutely no reason to see this movie. They recognize that any Watchmen adaptation (particularly this one that’s been made) is completely unnecessary. Well, for anyone not out to profit from it, anyway. Of course, even Warner Bros. might have been better off not producing the thing, since the studio won’t be making as much money as it had initially envisioned thanks to that profit-participation settlement with Fox.

The point of this post is not to call Watchmen watchers stupid. Rather, our list of five reasons the film is unnecessary is to help moviegoers get smart. After reading this, though, if any of you are still determined to waste your time sitting through almost 3 hours of redundant, rehashed, irrelevant, ridiculous and inescapably disappointing superhero cinema, we’ll be left with no choice but to consider you mindless sheep, the kind that deserve to be duped. And if Dr. Manhattan chooses to vaporize us (or fans choose to curse us out in the comments section) for exposing the truth about this enterprise of excess, then so be it. We believe we’ve served justice here.
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Will Smith’s new superhero movie, Hancock, may be receiving terrible reviews, but it’s sure to make a lot of money. It is a Will Smith movie, after all. The fact that it’s an original superhero title (meaning not adapted from a comic book or other source material), however, means that if it is a success, it will be the rare movie of its kind to be such. Superhero movies may be huge right now, but really only the pre-sold properties, those with a build-in audience, make the big bucks.

A number of original superhero movies are just as worthy of your attention as the Spider-Mans, the Iron Mans, the Batmans and the X-Mens. Sure, much of the time, non-adapted superheroes are lame, as in the cases of Blankman and My Super Ex-Girlfriend. But just check out any of the following ten titles and see why it sometimes pays off to put your trust in an unfamiliar hero.

1. The Incredibles - This one did it all: won an Oscar; received favorable reviews across the board; did blockbuster business in theaters and ancillaries (its the sole original superhero movie to break $100 million, domestically, a feat it far surpassed by actually grossing more than $260 million); and featured the single greatest superhero gag (above) ever seen. So there’s proof that a superhero movie can be good and do well without being based on another property. …Read more

• Twenty days after Lionsgate was rumored to be working out a deal with the WGA, the studio has finally reached one. And Marvel Studios has too! Comic book fans everywhere rejoice as Lionsgate’s Punisher: War Zone and Iron Fist and Marvel’s Captain America, Thor, Ant-Man, The Avengers and others are free to continue being written and/or re-written.
• But hey, if the strike doesn’t end soon — the WGA and moguls meet informally again today — Hollywood can just release 3D versions of old movies in 2010. That’s what Disney has planned so far (even if not directly because of the strike) with at least Toy Story and Toy Story 2. I’m fine with it; I love digital 3D, and I think The Incredibles should be next.
• With Sundance just about done, we can look back and say the star-studded films weren’t all that appealing to buyers. Or even well-received by the critics. Now, aren’t you glad you check out the star-less foreign films like I told you to?
• Meanwhile, as part of the trend of buying less-hyped titles, Slamdance has been selling some movies too.

I’d like to still say that I’ll watch Will Smith in anything, but as I still haven’t gotten around to seeing I Am Legend (and because of friends’ responses, I may not anytime soon), such a statement would be erroneous. Besides, after watching the new tweaked trailer for Hancock (courtesy of Chris at Movie Marketing Madness, who points out that it’s pretty much the same as the first Hancock trailer), Smith’s summer blockbuster for 2008 , I don’t know if I’m going to see that one either.

As if there aren’t enough worthy comic books to adapt, Hollywood has been giving us way too many gimmicky superhero movies — superheroes in a high school! superhero who’s your ex-girlfriend! superhero who has fallen out of favor and drinks his life away! — and the superhero concept has become the easiest pitch since that whole Die Hard in a ____ thing. The thing is, the idea behind Hancock, that of a public that’s pissed off about heroes that are more destructive than helpful, has already been alluded to enough in Watchmen (the graphic novel, which is also on its way to the big screen) and The Incredibles, which will never be equalled as far as non-adaptation superhero movies go. I guess Hancock is kind of like evil, drunk Superman in Superman III. But it’s Will Smith, so it’s … funnier?