Marvel/Disney playing hardball with FOX & Sony

[Cyberstrike]

There is also some thing else that needs to be said that the head of Marvel doesn't like the head of 21st Century Fox Films on a personal level.

Now THAT is an interesting point to make.

Any articles to note you feel are worth reading? Hollywood battles like that get very personal.

I don't think it's that common in the West where it seems most times that personal greed basically trumps personal dislike, but it does happen. People with big bank accounts often act like they got little egos in public.

I would say that it probably more common in Asia where personal honor and saving face is considered more important. Old school Japanese business people in particular are said to be known for canceling huge business deals over personal offences. The battle over the legendary Macross anime series and the American Robotech series is really nasty.

[lorddunlow]

As risky as making Iron Man in 2008, Batman in 1989 or Blade in 1998.

The point jeremycoe appeared to be making was two-fold: that Bishop is not first tier these days; Deadpool really is. And that he is part of ensemble, the ensemble is first tier.

Now that has little meaning for a comic book audience, but it is hard to argue against Deadpool's ubiquity for Marvel as a comics publisher.

X-Men (2000) was quite the risk at the time, as how many comic book fans do you think there are to make a massive box office hit? These movies are made for a much larger audience than comic book readers. We are a part of the general audience - not the dominating force.

So going with a Deadpool was based on Fox seeing the reaction to the concept trailer (funny video, too). But it was most probably with the assumption this would go over with even non-comic book (NCB) patrons of theaters. Otherwise, it would have a difficult time achieving such high returns on the budget assigned. None of us would assume comic book fans helped The Avengers achieve a worldwide $1.5 billion on their own. It was a much, much larger audience that attended this movie - and many times multiple times - leading to those results.

So with X-Men: Days of Future Past, it would be the same situation. To hit that $746 MM worldwide box office, the movie had to reach a much larger audience than comic book fans. But adding these new characters came with some risk. Who outside of comics knew Bishop or the other characters that appeared? Warpath - never heard anyone at work in a movie conversation state 'Gotta have me some Warpath' in their comic book movies. And Blink was a masterful choice, as she went over very strongly with Asian audience members. But before that, it was risky to toss out this character that really had no history with those NCB theater-goers.

So Deadpool will be another one that is new ground for Fox. The character in Origins was nothing like the Deadpool in comics, other than 'Wade Wilson' being used in the movie and some smart-alleck jokes and sweet swordplay in certain scenes. Other than that, NCB folks are not going to really know who this is. Risk abounds!

So, here is where I'll put in my baseless assumptions:

If you ask me, the X-Men movies are directly benefiting from the actual Marvel movies. As you said, they have the little Marvel animation at the beginning. The general moviegoing public doesn't keep track of Fox vs. Sony vs. Marvel/Disney. They don't care. In fact, I had no idea until Marvel started with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk that they weren't directly involved in the previous movies such as Spiderman and X-Men. So, Marvel has created a culture right now where a "Marvel" movie is a great movie. That's part of why they could take the risk on GotG. Sony and Fox are going to benefit from their success. Fox clearly made a superior product with the recent X-men movies than Sony with the crappy Spiderman movies and the box office shows that. But if you erased the MCU from existence, then Sony and Fox would be getting much less returns on their movies. IMHO.

[geocarr]

Maybe to change the direction of this discussion slightly:
How many super hero characters can a movie support before the expenses outweigh the expected likely revenue? I would love to see a comprehensive Marvel cinematic universe, but what's the average cost of including a super hero character in a movie in terms of casting, doubles, wardrobe, CGI effects for their powers, etc. It would be nice if Marvel/Disney weren't limited by licensing and contractual rights but there would likely still be some financial budget ceilings. At least, I think there would. And please, don't anyone be a pain the *SQUEE* and ask me to interpret what I just wrote.

Could you interpret that?

AAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-slym

[bosco685]

So, here is where I'll put in my baseless assumptions:

If you ask me, the X-Men movies are directly benefiting from the actual Marvel movies. As you said, they have the little Marvel animation at the beginning. The general moviegoing public doesn't keep track of Fox vs. Sony vs. Marvel/Disney. They don't care. In fact, I had no idea until Marvel started with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk that they weren't directly involved in the previous movies such as Spiderman and X-Men. So, Marvel has created a culture right now where a "Marvel" movie is a great movie. That's part of why they could take the risk on GotG. Sony and Fox are going to benefit from their success. Fox clearly made a superior product with the recent X-men movies than Sony with the crappy Spiderman movies and the box office shows that. But if you erased the MCU from existence, then Sony and Fox would be getting much less returns on their movies. IMHO.

There is definitely some sense of feeding off of one another. All of them are trying to take advantage of the new 'comic book properties are cool' excitement going on that has been around since the early days of Blade (1998) and X-Men (2000). Interesting enough, it was Blade that kicked off the Marvel Studios partnership model before it brought the movie productions in-house. But it was Spider-Man (2002) that proved there was tremendous money to be made with these silly comic book properties.

So really Marvel Studios used Sony and Fox to help kick off its future path before Iron Man (2008) even came around. If anything, learning from their successes and misses would be a smart move. And now having Disney as the funding daddy, Marvel can't fail. At least financially. As long as there is never another 'The Incredible Hulk' Abomination abomination, this ship will keep on sailing.

Interesting enough, I happened across an article that came out after Disney acquired Marvel. It was summarizing how Disney was going to take back all of its properties over time. Some of this has come true already.

Disney’s Marvel Buy Traps Hollywood in Spider-Man Web

[dornwolf]

As risky as making Iron Man in 2008, Batman in 1989 or Blade in 1998.

The point jeremycoe appeared to be making was two-fold: that Bishop is not first tier these days; Deadpool really is. And that he is part of ensemble, the ensemble is first tier.

Now that has little meaning for a comic book audience, but it is hard to argue against Deadpool's ubiquity for Marvel as a comics publisher.

X-Men (2000) was quite the risk at the time, as how many comic book fans do you think there are to make a massive box office hit? These movies are made for a much larger audience than comic book readers. We are a part of the general audience - not the dominating force.

So going with a Deadpool was based on Fox seeing the reaction to the concept trailer (funny video, too). But it was most probably with the assumption this would go over with even non-comic book (NCB) patrons of theaters. Otherwise, it would have a difficult time achieving such high returns on the budget assigned. None of us would assume comic book fans helped The Avengers achieve a worldwide $1.5 billion on their own. It was a much, much larger audience that attended this movie - and many times multiple times - leading to those results.

So with X-Men: Days of Future Past, it would be the same situation. To hit that $746 MM worldwide box office, the movie had to reach a much larger audience than comic book fans. But adding these new characters came with some risk. Who outside of comics knew Bishop or the other characters that appeared? Warpath - never heard anyone at work in a movie conversation state 'Gotta have me some Warpath' in their comic book movies. And Blink was a masterful choice, as she went over very strongly with Asian audience members. But before that, it was risky to toss out this character that really had no history with those NCB theater-goers.

So Deadpool will be another one that is new ground for Fox. The character in Origins was nothing like the Deadpool in comics, other than 'Wade Wilson' being used in the movie and some smart-alleck jokes and sweet swordplay in certain scenes. Other than that, NCB folks are not going to really know who this is. Risk abounds!

So, here is where I'll put in my baseless assumptions:

If you ask me, the X-Men movies are directly benefiting from the actual Marvel movies. As you said, they have the little Marvel animation at the beginning. The general moviegoing public doesn't keep track of Fox vs. Sony vs. Marvel/Disney. They don't care. In fact, I had no idea until Marvel started with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk that they weren't directly involved in the previous movies such as Spiderman and X-Men. So, Marvel has created a culture right now where a "Marvel" movie is a great movie. That's part of why they could take the risk on GotG. Sony and Fox are going to benefit from their success. Fox clearly made a superior product with the recent X-men movies than Sony with the crappy Spiderman movies and the box office shows that. But if you erased the MCU from existence, then Sony and Fox would be getting much less returns on their movies. IMHO.

The problem I have with this is that those movies X-men and Spider-man were doing fine without Marvel Studios gaining any ground. Did they slowly turn to crap as people sought profits over plot definitely could they get better with the right script, director and actors yes. The Marvel/Disney powerhouse can only go so long before it will collapse and take the Superhero rush with it. It only takes one.

[Heath]

So, here is where I'll put in my baseless assumptions:

If you ask me, the X-Men movies are directly benefiting from the actual Marvel movies. As you said, they have the little Marvel animation at the beginning. The general moviegoing public doesn't keep track of Fox vs. Sony vs. Marvel/Disney. They don't care. In fact, I had no idea until Marvel started with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk that they weren't directly involved in the previous movies such as Spiderman and X-Men. So, Marvel has created a culture right now where a "Marvel" movie is a great movie. That's part of why they could take the risk on GotG. Sony and Fox are going to benefit from their success. Fox clearly made a superior product with the recent X-men movies than Sony with the crappy Spiderman movies and the box office shows that. But if you erased the MCU from existence, then Sony and Fox would be getting much less returns on their movies. IMHO.

The flip side of that is if Sony and FOX start churning out really bad Marvel-related movies just so they can maintain the rights and make a few easy bucks, then that hurts Marvel and their movie universe they've worked so hard on. The potential of that has to be a big part of why they want the movie rights back to themselves.

[lorddunlow]

So, here is where I'll put in my baseless assumptions:

If you ask me, the X-Men movies are directly benefiting from the actual Marvel movies. As you said, they have the little Marvel animation at the beginning. The general moviegoing public doesn't keep track of Fox vs. Sony vs. Marvel/Disney. They don't care. In fact, I had no idea until Marvel started with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk that they weren't directly involved in the previous movies such as Spiderman and X-Men. So, Marvel has created a culture right now where a "Marvel" movie is a great movie. That's part of why they could take the risk on GotG. Sony and Fox are going to benefit from their success. Fox clearly made a superior product with the recent X-men movies than Sony with the crappy Spiderman movies and the box office shows that. But if you erased the MCU from existence, then Sony and Fox would be getting much less returns on their movies. IMHO.

The flip side of that is if Sony and FOX start churning out really bad Marvel-related movies just so they can maintain the rights and make a few easy bucks, then that hurts Marvel and their movie universe they've worked so hard on. The potential of that has to be a big part of why they want the movie rights back to themselves.

Exactly!

[bosco685]

So, here is where I'll put in my baseless assumptions:

If you ask me, the X-Men movies are directly benefiting from the actual Marvel movies. As you said, they have the little Marvel animation at the beginning. The general moviegoing public doesn't keep track of Fox vs. Sony vs. Marvel/Disney. They don't care. In fact, I had no idea until Marvel started with Iron Man and Incredible Hulk that they weren't directly involved in the previous movies such as Spiderman and X-Men. So, Marvel has created a culture right now where a "Marvel" movie is a great movie. That's part of why they could take the risk on GotG. Sony and Fox are going to benefit from their success. Fox clearly made a superior product with the recent X-men movies than Sony with the crappy Spiderman movies and the box office shows that. But if you erased the MCU from existence, then Sony and Fox would be getting much less returns on their movies. IMHO.

The flip side of that is if Sony and FOX start churning out really bad Marvel-related movies just so they can maintain the rights and make a few easy bucks, then that hurts Marvel and their movie universe they've worked so hard on. The potential of that has to be a big part of why they want the movie rights back to themselves.

Exactly!

That is always the risk when you outsource your creative work like that.

And that risk has been realized this year with Sony's massive expense on Amazing Spider-Man 2 that did all of 2.4X budget. Heck, it was so painful the budget number is a guesstimation, as Sony won't release the true number. The rumor floated around in movie articles is more $350 MM versus $250-$255 MM estimated by some sites.

[Heath]

Being owned by Disney and having their own film studio and making their own movies weren't even ideas when those rights were sold.

The film rights to Fantastic Four has been held by Constantin Films since 1986. The entire reason the low budget FF Roger Corman movie was made in 1992 was just so Constantin could hold on to the rights. Fox is in the picture because they have the distribution rights in a deal with Constantin and co-produced all but the 1992 Roger Corman film.

The story of the Spider-Man film rights could be a movie itself (if a boring one only contract lawyers would watch). But, basically the film rights have been tied up since 1985. Columbia (a subsidiary of Sony) has held the rights since 1999.

Fox has held the X-Men film rights since 1994.

It was the success of the Spider-Man and X-Men movies that convinced Marvel to start producing their own films.

[bosco685]

It was the success of the Spider-Man and X-Men movies that convinced Marvel to start producing their own films.

Blade, X-Men, then Spider-Man - in that order.

[bosco685]

And I say Blade was part of that wakeup call because they didn't do a trilogy just because someone was concerned if Wesley Snipes had pocket change to spend.



The rule of thumb back then was any movie that hit or exceeded a 2.0X Revenue Ratio was a winner. The first movie easily surpassed that target, and the second one matched it. I blame Ryan Reynolds for the third movie, though it certainly wasn't a total bomb. It at least hit that 2.0X figure.

[maraxusofkeld]

The X-men movies, may have made money, but as an X-men fan, I think they are just awful. Cancelling the comic or killing characters is not going to diminish interest in the movies. Fox will continue to make terrible movies and will only cease when they are not making any money. By that point, people will be sick of seeing any movies with these characters. I am not sure what Marvel and Disney think they will achieve by ruining the mutant universe.

[bosco685]

Free advertising?

[ilzuccone]

Free advertising?

bingo. free advertising. there is a lot of money to be made advertising. disney isn't getting any. so they pull the plug (or something close to it).
it's simple. disney likes money.