Marvel movies and various studios... (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

It just annoys me that because Fox has the X-Men rights, Sony Spiderman and Marvel everything else....they can't be mentioned in each others films. Yes, I understand the legal issue. But, really...they couldn't sit down and work out an agreement to allow at least casual mentions or references. For example in Daredevil...they had to change the Daily Bugle to the NY Post because they didn't have the rights. But, really?!? They couldn't use it? It's a win-win for all studios. It allows fans to have continuity and their fan wishes...It can only help promote each others movies...which increases profits. It does no harm to the rights of each studio.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Word was that Sony and Marvel were going to have Oscorp tower in the NYC skyline for The Avengers but the design effects weren't ready in time for them to incorporate it into the film. Not sure of the validity of that though. Mark Millar and Laura Schuler Donner (Fox) have been quoted as saying it would be fun to have some ties to the MCU. Lawyers are lawyers though, so who knows of anything like this will ever be allowed.As a side note, Marvel now has the film rights back for Blade, Punisher, Ghost Rider, and Daredevil. So the only thing they don't have is Spider-Man (Sony), X-Men and all related characters (Fox), and the Fantastic Four (Fox). Three major properties in the Marvel comics universe. Fox has a much larger piece of the Marvel Universe since there are so many characters related to the X-Men, and the Fantastic Four has some major Marvel villains like Doom and Galactus. So Fox is in a better position to build their own cinematic universe. Sony's options are much more limited with only having Spider-Man now, so maybe they'd be more open to connecting with the MCU. I'd love to see some Easter eggs in future Marvel and Spider-Man films. Actually, I think that in the Marvel One shot on the Avengers blu-ray a character was wearing an Empire State University shirt. And I believe that is a Spider-Man property. I need to check of that's right though.

 

[sidburyjr]

What exactly do studios own the rights to? For example, if Marvel in one of its actual comic books put a villain from another comic book what would happen to tv/movie rights? e.g. Kingpin shows up in an X-men comic.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Marvel comics of course has the rights to all of Marvel comics. That's never changed. This is not a comics issue, it's a film rights issue.Marvel was on the verge of bankruptcy. One of the big things they did to help save themselves was to sell off the film rights for most (or I think maybe all) of its properties. A studio getting the film rights to a certain character (or character's book) typically included the titular character and all of the supporting characters and villains, etc... And this would have been hammered out in a written legal agreement at the time of the sale.Some of those arrangements are kind of complex. For instance, the characters of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch have a complex rights arrangement. They are mutants and are Magneto's children. But they have also been significant members of The Avengers. In this case, there is actually a joint ownership of the characters. Fox can use them, but they can't refer to them being Avengers. Marvel can use them, but they can't refer to them as "mutants" (simple enough to get around) and can't mention who their father is (not really relevant as it wasn't known/revealed in the comics for a long time anyway). The word is that these two will be in Avengers 2. The film rights are just that, film only. They still have everything comics wise, and they still have everything if they do animation. It's just live action motion picture rights that were sold off. I'm not sure about new comics characters in a book created after the rights were sold. But anyway, as Marvel got back on its feet they slowly started getting their film rights back. These sales mandated that movies had to be in development within a certain period of time or the rights would revert back to Marvel. So they got back the major characters they needed in order to do an Avengers movie (since those who owned Iron Man, Thor, Cap, SHIELD didn't make movies and Universal wasn't doing another Hulk after Ang Lee's horrible attempt), formed their own production studio, and made the long term plan for introducing each character with a solo film and building to The Avengers. It's worked out really well for them (and us)! The success of Sony's Spider-Man and Fox's X-Men helped pave the way for thiis. So while it would be great if present day Marvel Studios had Spidey and the X-Men ( and FF) back so they could all play in the MCU, you need to remember that the MCU would never have even existed if Marvel didn't save itself by selling those rights and those studios didn't make successful films out of them.Not sure if that answers your question. If Kingpin is featured in next month's issue of X-Men it means nothing as far as film rights. Which characters belong to which film properties would have been worked out at the time of the sale. As for new characters created after the sale, I don't know how that works.

 

[bradleybruns]

The rights get very interesting when it comes to the amusement parks. Universal Studios (Islands of Adventure) has attractions based on Spiderman, Dr. Doom, Hulk, and X-Men. These characters are all owned by Marvel, now owned by Disney. Obviously these Universal attractions came long before Disney bought Marvel, but its funny how it all worked out, considering the Disney parks just a few miles up the road.

 

[todd s]

Thanks for the info. Like I said originally. It would be nice if they were all able to come to an agreement that allows the use of characters (references only) in each others productions. Its good promo for all.

 

[Brandon Conway]

The rights get very interesting when it comes to the amusement parks.Universal Studios (Islands of Adventure) has attractions based on Spiderman, Dr. Doom, Hulk, and X-Men. These characters are all owned by Marvel, now owned by Disney. Obviously these Universal attractions came long before Disney bought Marvel, but its funny how it all worked out, considering the Disney parks just a few miles up the road.

IIRC, the agreement for the theme parks was that the Florida Universal licenses to Marvel characters would continue (though I don't know for how long) while the California Universal park had to immediately remove them. This means that any Disney/Marvel developed theme park attractions will be California only (with Paris/Tokyo/Hong Kong options), which is why they are planning an Iron Man ride in Tomorrowland and possibly a large Marvel section of the inevitable 3rd gate (with probable assistance from Star Wars and Oz themed sections).