Marvel isn’t shy about updating us on their business plan, as we saw in the past. And this time they’re sharing their brand expansion plan. “We’re not in the business of simply making films; we’re in the business of building brands,” Marvel Entertainment president Paul Gitter said. The comic book company is planning to have an even bigger merchandising campaign for their ‘Iron Man’ DVD release this fall, than the theatrical release last month.

Gitter even wants to “create specific programs for each retailer,” he said. “Our strategy is to place product into the marketplace prior to a film’s releasing and to keep it [there], then to freshen up the product with new styles and new art in time with the DVD release.“

But not only that. Marvel has a three-year strategy for all their currently planned films. 1. Release the movie in theaters and on DVD, with marketing well in advance. 2. Expand with a supporting animated release. 3. Release the sequel to the first movie.

With ‘The Incredible Hulk’ coming up, Marvel seems to be hitting the gold by making their own movies. But can they keep it up? And are they expecting ‘Thor,’ ‘The First Avenger: Captain America,’ ‘The Avengers’ and all their sequels to be a success?

The only thing we didn’t have was an official word from Marvel, but now we have it. ‘Iron Man 2′ has been confirmed for April 30, 2010. Jon Favreau and his crew already hinted at how they’d like to do a sequel. They said it in like every other interview last week. If it wasn’t for the possible actors’ strike, they might have already been working on it. But Marvel didn’t want to take any risks by setting the release date for next summer.

Marvel Entertainment stock jumped almost 10% as we expected, but settled to around 7.5% later in the day. This while the market was down overall, mostly caused by the failed Yahoo deal and concerns about mortgage lender Countrywide’s suitor backing out as well.

In 2006, Marvel Entertainment started raising $525 million to produce its own movies. Before that it was only licensing its characters, like ‘Spider-man’ to Sony. Their second film will be ‘The Incredible Hulk’ in June and the third will be the just announced ‘Iron Man’ sequel. Marvel also announced their fourth feature called ‘Thor,’ which is planned for June 4, 2010. They sure like their summer season.