Disney buys Marvel comics

The Walt Disney empire is to buy the superheroes stable Marvel Entertainment for $4bn (£2.5bn) in a star-studded Hollywood deal that unites family names such as Mickey Mouse with lucrative characters including Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men.

Disney hopes to put Marvel's 5,000 characters to work on its television channels and in video games, theme parks and movies. The agreed takeover is for a mixture of cash and stock, with Disney shares accounting for roughly 40% of the buyout price.

One wonders what the future holds.

Unusual teamups: Dalí & Disney

In 1946, Walt Disney and Salvador Dalí, in one of cinema's oddest collaborations, teamed up on a short film called Destino. But Disney's studio ran into financial trouble and put the unfinished film on hold. Fast forward 57 years and a team of Disney animators took the project off the shelf and using traditional and 3-D animation techniques brought Dalí­'s paintings and sketches to life. The six-minute film, spearheaded by Walt's nephew Roy Disney, premiered at the Annecy Animation Festival in June 2003. An official home DVD release is expected in 2010 along with a documentary about the two artists' history together.

The film is sometimes oddly reminiscent of René Laloux's La Planète Sauvage.