Marvel is owned by Disney (the United States, NYSE: DIS), which acquired the brand on 31 December 2009 for $4 billion.[1][2] Marvel was founded in 1939 in New York, New York and was independent until 2009.
Evidence: The Walt Disney Company Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2025-11-13, SEC EDGAR, 13 November 2025. Verified from filings; last checked .
Marvel filed for bankruptcy in 1996 and had licensed away film rights to its best-known characters to survive. Disney bought it in 2009 for about $4 billion, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe went on to become the highest-grossing film franchise ever made.
Sentences about Marvel from Disney's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
However, Sony Pictures Entertainment has the rights to produce and distribute Spider-Man films as a result of licensing these rights from Marvel prior to the Company's acquisition of Marvel.
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named less often than it was three years earlier.
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
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See the full Disney brand portfolio (13) →
Disney controls 13 brands on Brandtree, 10 of them in media & entertainment.
The 18 brands in entertainment franchises on Brandtree belong to 7 owners. The largest is Sanrio, with 8; Disney has 2.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Aggretsuko | Sanrio | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Degrassi | WildBrain | 🇨🇦 Canada |
| Gundam | Bandai Namco | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Kakao Friends | Kakao | 🇰🇷 South Korea |
| Godzilla | TOHO | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| DC | Warner Bros. Discovery | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Cinnamoroll | Sanrio | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Gudetama | Sanrio | 🇯🇵 Japan |
Disney is a publicly listed company headquartered in Burbank, California, United States, founded in 1923. Brandtree records 13 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: DIS.
Disney was founded in 1923 by two brothers making short cartoons and is now the largest entertainment company in the world. Its purchases of Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and most of 21st Century Fox mean a substantial share of the highest-grossing films ever made belong to one owner.
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 2,549 brands that began in the United States. 478 of them (19%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Marvel is not one of them.
Disney acquired Marvel Entertainment for about $4 billion. Marvel had emerged from bankruptcy a decade earlier having licensed away film rights to several of its best-known characters, which is why Spider-Man remains entangled with Sony.
The parent company of Marvel is Disney, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Yes. Marvel originated in the United States in 1939 and its owner, Disney, is also headquartered in the United States.
Disney completed its acquisition of Marvel on 31 December 2009, after announcing the deal on 31 August 2009. The deal was valued at $4 billion.
Marvel was an independent company from its founding in 1939 in New York, New York until Disney acquired it in 2009.
Yes. As of 9 October 2026, Marvel is still owned by Disney. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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