Genius Brands (NASDAQ:GNUS) news for Monday concerning a new media project from the company saw GNUS stock fall hard.
The company’s big announcement today has to do with Stan Lee. The company notes that it will be creating content based off of the comic book creators’ properties. While that sounds great, there’s a catch. It doesn’t include anything from Disney (NYSE:DIS)-owned Marvel.
While Stan Lee is known as the creator of Spider-Man and many other iconic superheroes, he didn’t own the right to them. Those remain with Marvel and are not a part of the deal that Genius Brands has signed.
Instead, Genius Brands will be licensing out properties that belong to Stan Lee’s POW! Entertainment. The goal is to create what it calls the “Stan Lee Universe.” This will have the company licensing roughly seven of these properties per year to create its own universe.
Andy Heyward, chairman and CEO of Genius Brands, said this about the news.
“When we looked at the depth of these creations that sit in this library, the magnitude and value of this asset slowly began to sink in. There simply is no greater treasure chest of Intellectual Property anywhere. I feel like we went down to the basement of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s recording studio and found 200 songs that had never been released.”
GNUS stock was down 25.1% when markets closed on Monday and was down 1.5% in after-hours trading.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
