vido-ardes wrote:wraithkelso wrote:You're about 85% right but let me correct a few points.
-The film rights at all the different studios are on leases. The studio has to have a new movie based on that property in production within X years to keep the rights. Fox let the rights lapse back to Marvel for the characters you mentioned, however Marvel didn't have to pay a penny to get those rights back.
-Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are both co owned by Marvel and Fox because they were equally prevalent in Avengers as they were in X-Men comics. Fox has chosen not to utilize Scarlet Witch but they could.
-Marvel was within months of getting Fantastic 4 back, those characters would have reverted to Marvel at about the same time as Daredevil, Ghost Rider, etc, however Fox didn't want to give up the FF so they decided to rush into production. Had it not actually started filming in time the rights would have reverted, I think they were within a month of the window closing. Marvel actually offered to Fox that they could keep the smaller characters in return for giving up rights to Silver surfer and Galactus. Marvel knew that Fantastic 4 would need those 2 characters in the long run and they desperately wanted the rights back.
-Spider-Man is now co owned by both Sony and Marvel and the reason for that is two-fold. 1) ASM2 got horrible critic and fan reviews, and 2) Sony as a company is having massive financial troubles (not the studio in particular, but the whole company). Sony was desperate so they decided to partner with Marvel.
Also worth noting is that the film rights were only leased out because otherwise Marvel was facing bankruptcy at the time. It really was the only option to stay afloat.
Sorry I hate to be "that guy", but I gotta make a correction to your correction.
WARNING: If you don't care about Marvel movie rights, look away.this is going to take a while... I know this isn't strictly Funko related, but it will hopefully try and explain the licensing problems!
Believe it or not this whole situation was a hell of a lot more confusing 5 years ago as licenses were handed out like candy in the 90's, but recently most of these have reverted to Marvel. Short story is Marvel was on the brink of bankruptcy and sold movie rights to Universal, Fox and Artisan for some much needed cash (Artisan being a tiny company with a fat wallet off the back of the success of the Blair Witch project).
Over the years they sold lots of movie license to lots of studios. Contrary to popular belief Fox didn't own tons of rights and they were spread all over the shop. Here is a quick history of all the licenses that were dished out:
- Republic Pictures made a Captain America film in 1944, but this doesn't really count as Marvel wasn't even known as Marvel then! (they were Timley Comics)
- Constantin Film had Fantastic Four (interesting story, they made an entire film and just before release Avi Arad purchased all copies and prints and had them destroyed as it was so bad!)
- Universal had Hulk and Namor (back to them later) and had Howard the Duck
- Fox had X-Men, Fantastic Four (shared with Constantin), Daredevil and Elektra
- Artisan Entertainment had Captain America, Black Panther, Deadpool, Iron Fist, Morbius, Longshot, Power Pack, Mort the Dead Teenager, Ant-Man, Punisher and Man-Thing
- New Line Cinema had Blade, Iron Man and Deadpool (purchased from Artisan)
- Lionsgate had Black Widow, Punisher , Iron-Fist and Man-Thing (all inherited the purchase of Artisan, I will come back to Man-Thing in a minute)
- Columbia had Black Panther (from Artisan)
- Sony had Spider-Man, Thor, Ghost Rider (in conjunction with Crystal Sky) and Luke Cage
- Dimension had Warewolf By Night and Dr. Strange
- Paramount had Deathlok
Sony still have Spider-Man, Fox have X-Men, Fantastic Four & Deadpool (purchased from New Line). Constantin Film still technically own the rights to Fantastic Four and co-produced and distributed the first 2 films, and is still involved with the reboot.
Lots of the above nearly went into production, Black Panther was going to be a spy film with Wesley Snipes and Ray Park was signed on to do Iron Fist. The above mostly reverted back to Marvel due to the lack of films surrounding the characters, except for Luke Cage which is believed to have been purchased back, and there are still some hangers on (more on that later). Fox tried to retain the rights to Daredevil too, but Marvel refused an extension. Once they were purchased by Disney in 2009, they were obviously keen to start making films and set about regaining as many licenses as they could, including any distribution rights. There is an infographic by the Geek Twins that does a good job of explaining the current state at a glance, but doesn't tell the whole story. Below is a list of the currently active licenses at other studios:
Sony
Sony still own all of the movie rights to Spider-Man, nothing has changed on that front. What Marvel have done is make a deal with them that allows them to use the characters in their movies, and exercise some creative control over the Sony movies in the sense they cannot do anything that conflicts the MCU storyline. Sony wholly own the movie rights and no money has exchanged hands. Marvel make no money from Sony's films, and the reverse is true for MCU films that contain spider man. There is potential for bonuses to be issues based on box office milestones, but these are tokenry. The other unknown is the extent of the deal and the characters it covers, it is entierly possible it limits Marvel to only using the Spider-Man character, and not any of the supporting cast, but at this point is all specualtion and probably subject to change. The only fact we know is that Marvel can use Spider-Man, this is not confimation that Norman Osbourne or Venom are going to start butting heads with Iron Man, and equally any Marvel charatcer outside of Sony's license will only appear in Sony's film when allowed on a case by case basis by Marvel (for example Iron man is rumored to appear in the Spider-Man standalone film).
Fox
The above explanation of Fox's situation is largely correct, but it is an incredibly complicated subject. They own the movie rights entirely for the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises. Unfortunately this causes more confusion than it clears up given how mixed up the Marvel comic universe is, and how the phrases "X-Men" and "Fantastic Four" actually define very little. The contents of the deal between Marvel and Fox have never been disclosed so no-one outside those companies knows what it covers, there is a common assumption that first appearance in the comics determines the franchise but this is totally incorrect. Here are a few points to show just how unclear it is:Ultimately the original deal probably wasn't as clear as it needed to be as no one at the time expected Marvel to start making it's own films, but I imagine there is either
- Ulysses Klaue (Klaw), the Kree and Ronan the Accuser, and Black Panther all debuted in Fantastic Four comics but belong to Marvel Studios
- Rogue debuted in Avengers, Wolverine in Incredible Hulk, Mystique in Ms. Marvel, Sabretooth in Iron Fist, Viper in Captain America and Silver Samurai in Daredevil, all have been used in Fox's X-Men films. Equally Kang is primarily an Avengers bad guy, but movie rights belong to Fox
I imagine it is the former. A lot of people have decided that Marvel can;t use the term 'mutant' and have cited Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D show runner Maurissa Tancharoen for proof, but it is far more likley that Marvel have decided simply to not use the word (and subsequently ban it from the TV show) due to the fact that they can't use any of the characters. Despite the constant chatter that it is not allowed due to licensing, it is far more likely it is simply banned for creative reasons. It is known that other deals did list characters which saved them from other licenses by 'first appearance' rule, for example Kingpin was a Spider-Man villain but was packaged as part of the Daredevil license which recently reverted back to Marvel.
- a) a list of characters the license covers and ones that were not explicitly mentioned live in a grey area (a la Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver; mutants, who aren't actually mutants any more, who are primarily Avengers, also appear in major X-Men stories e.t.c)
- b) Characters are not defined and everytime they want to make a film there is an argument between studios.
Universal
Namor is very confusing to define as he has been a part of every team under the sun... except that Universal own the rights to him specifically, but what is not clear is if they own the rights to supporting characters such as Namora and Namorita. Marvel have stated that while Universal can't actually make movies with him in anymore (presumably because the license expired), they can't either and are working on getting it back. Universal still own first refusal on the distribution rights for the Hulk, and did distribute the Edward Norton Hulk film (and got a nice chunk of change in the process). This is possibly why no other solo Hulk films have been produced.
Lionsgate
While Black widow and Punisher have clearly reverted to Marvel, Man-Thing is still a bit of a grey area. Until recently it was believed that Lionsgate still had the license, but they haven't made a film with him in since 2005 and also he has been mentioned in the MCU (both by Ellen Brandt in Iron Man 3 and Maria Hill in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) so it is possible those rights are with Marvel.
Paramount
Worth a footnote, Paramount distributed Iron Man 1 & 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger, and owned the distribution rights to the Avengers and Iron Man 3 but sold these back to Disney.
The above only goes to show how big of a mess things are, and highlights how the current licenses are still unclear. For example Miles Morales, a character created in 2011 couldn't be used by Marvel, but cannot have been included in the license with Sony as it was created in 1999. It throws doubt on characters like Adam Warlock, who debuted in Fantastic Four, and there are rumors that the Chithari were used in the Avengers instead of the Skrulls due to licensing, but the same was thought of the Kree until they turned up in Guardians of the Galaxy. The ninjas in 'The Wolverine' were likley to be 'The hand', but they wern't called that due to the fact that license went back to Marvel with Daredevil. It also highlights how studios can hang on to licenses (like Constantin) without actually doing anything for decades.
Needless to say, it's a bit of a mess.
TL;DR Marvel sold everything to everyone back in the 90's and since being bought by Disney is slowly clawing everything back. Fox and Sony are the only other studios that can produce films with Marvel characters in (barring possibly Lionsgate with Man-Thing), but who owns the rights to what characters is somewhat of a mystery, and neither Sony, Fox or Marvel are telling.
This guy knows his stuff!! Love it!
. I'd say as a collector that you value having the exclusive sticker for verification of where you purchased it. Something along those lines so maybe they can offer a replacement. It's worth a try at least
^
