YOJIMBO HAGGLE TV

Even though its over two decades old, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” is an established brand. While this is a tiny deal compared to Disney’s recent $4 billion deal to acquire Marvel Entertainment, the rationale is the same.

Rivals including Walt Disney Co., new cable network Disney XD and Time Warner’s Cartoon Network, both have programming that is aimed directly at boys and young teens. Over the past five years, Nickelodeon’s reach among boys 6-11 has fallen by almost 10%, and by 6% in the 9-14 category.

Nickelodeon’s rationale for acquiring the Turtles property is a familiar one:įor Nickelodeon, the move is part of an ongoing strategy to to attract more boys to the channel. Undeveloped properties aren’t worth anything. However, if Laird wasn’t interested in working on the Turtles anymore and wanted to do other things, he wouldn’t haggle over the price. I’m guessing that Mirage Studios hasn’t ever released numbers of that sort publicly.

I haven’t seen any articles which estimated the value of media or merchandising rights for the Turtles. However, even allowing for the other entities of the Mirage Group, $50 million is a nice payout after having already made millions and millions of dollars.Ĭongrats to Peter Laird, and here’s hoping he enjoys his newfound spare time. Eastman spent an awful lot of his money, and it’s believed that the Laird buyout actually bailed him out of a lot of debts he’d run up. And I think that is certainly possible.Įastman and Laird remain the only two indie comics creators who ever got filthy rich from their creations, and they did it by holding on to the copyright and having a very, very savvy agent who made them terrific deals. What I am hoping, however, is that this little core group of creators sticks together, both as friends and collaborators. For a little while, it will be helping with the transition of TMNT over to its new owners. It just doesn’t own the TMNT intellectual property anymore. Mirage still exists, and it’s still my company. On a final note (at least for this statement), please understand that I sold the TMNT property, not Mirage Studios. Unless I am completely naive, the sale to Viacom could very well mean a brighter future for the TMNT property than was previously feasible. One comment - which I have seen online several times - expresses the sentiment that this sale will mean “the end of TMNT”. The entire statement should be read for context, but it does get into such interesting territory as how his take differs from Nickelodeon’s and more. On his blog, Laird explains his reasons for the sale, mainly burnout at running a global franchise - Laird is 55 - and the desire to get back to drawing. While it’s not quite clear who else is involved in the Mirage Group, Laird had been the sole creator involved in the franchise since buying out his co-creator Kevin Eastman in 2000. The rest - $50 million - went to Mirage Group, the previous owners, including co-creator Peter Laird, probably best known in this space as the funder and organizer of the Xeric Grants for deserving indie comics.

YOJIMBO HAGGLE TV

The Nick deal included nearly $10 million as a buyout for 4Kids, which owned the TV rights for the franchise.

Yojimbo haggle