Marvel should have at least held onto the Spider-Man movie rights. Spider-Man would have done well regardless of who was going to make it. It's strange that they would give up their biggest character.
When does Marvel get its film rights back from Fox...
- Thread starter Norrin Radd
- Start date
Marvel should have at least held onto the Spider-Man movie rights. Spider-Man would have done well regardless of who was going to make it. It's strange that they would give up their biggest character.
Norrin Radd
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And it got ravaged by both critics and (lack of) audiences.
Norrin Radd
Vice Admiral
There's nothing wrong with giving studios the chance to make a movie or two, but Marvel should have put more restrictions into the deals. Like, ten or fifteen year deals instead of giving them out for God knows how long. That is what is stupid.
Or at least giving an "out." Like if a movie doesn't make x-expectations then the studio loses the property.
Some of these deals were made when Marvel was in a very poor financial state, at a time when the notion that Marvel would one day self-finance their own films would have seemed utterly fantastic and implausible. The Spider-Man rights were sold some 20 years ago and of course were litigated for close to a decade, a case which Columbia ultimately won.
Well, it's not lik the studios just get the rights 'for free'; everytime they make a new movie under whatever rights contract deal they have, Mavel gets another LARGE licensing fee. And I agree with other posters who state that assuming Marvel Studios will ALWAYS do a good or better job then <insert studio name here> is fooling themselves.
Look, I still think Iron Man is the best super-hero film done to date; HOWEVER The Hulk; wile better than the Ang Lee mess - STILL left a lot to be desired (and I've been reading The Hulk from the late 1960ies up throught the early 12980ies when I stopped reading monthly comics.
As always, it depends on a number if factors the most important (and often least paid or thought about); is the script, followed by the director, and then casting. Marvel scored big in Iron Man by getting Faverau and Robert Downey Jr.; had either of those two been missing, the end result probably would have been quite different.
Norrin Radd
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I'm not necessarily suggesting that Marvel could do a better job on their movies. I too was disappointed in Incredible Hulk. Other studios have screwed up on Marvel's properties as well. But all I know is that Fox is doing a consistently poor job with Marvel's properties. Even if Marvel wasn't willing to do it themselves, at least they could give it to somebody else who actually gives a shit about making high quality films out of their characters.
Hold onto them to do what? Marvel was a tiny publishing house. They in no way shape or form had the capability to do what they're trying to do now.
At the time Marvel sold a lot of these, they were bankrupt. That wasn't the case with Spider-Man, but still, there was little in the way of a proven market for comic book films that would allow them to get the sort of financing they needed from the now-defunct Merrill-Lynch (remember that the collateral on those deals was ownership of the film rights to the properties involved if Marvel defaulted, and, until very recently, there's no way Merrill-Lynch would have valued the rights to the various Avengers characters as being worth $650 million). It's only the success of the properties Marvel sold that has allowed them to start on this current venture.
Heck, selling movie rights was what allowed Marvel to be not-bankrupt, starting with the money they got from the 1998 Blade film, which in turn was used as a starting point for 2000's X-Men, which launched the current era of superhero films.
Incredible Hulk wasn't that great compared to the other Marvel movies out there (I found it even paled in comparison to the first one... and wasn't that far off from the money mark it made back).
Iron Man was fantastic. So they're doing 50%.
That seems to match Fox, really.
While to me, Sony (Columbia) and the Spidey franchise is 2 for 3, so far much better odds.
I thought Incredible Hulk was good. For me it was better then the first Hulk. The problem with making a movie about Hulk is that it's really hard for the public to relate to the character since Hulk is pretty much Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a superhero. The movies were never going to be as huge as something like Spider-Man.
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I'd say Columbia's 2 for 4 if you include Ghost Rider, and 3 for 6 if you include the MIB films.
There are plenty of Marvel movies but I think only half of them are any good.
Warners hasn't done much better since they only do Superman and Batman movies.
The WB is remarkably chickenshit about making superhero movies.
Seriously, this whole phenomenon started with goddamn Blade, a character who can't hold his own comic to save his life, but they've plenty 10+ years since then (and plenty more before) fretting over whether their most enduring characters have film potential.
Seriously, this whole phenomenon started with goddamn Blade, a character who can't hold his own comic to save his life, but they've plenty 10+ years since then (and plenty more before) fretting over whether their most enduring characters have film potential.
And Watchmen (no reason to discount it just because it's not DCU), and Green Lantern is coming up. And of course there are the Vertigo films.
^I thought WATCHMEN already came out?
Of course it has. I was referring to other DC films that Warners has made or is in the process of making. The "coming up" applied to Green Lantern only.I thought WATCHMEN already came out?
I'd give you Watchmen. That I forget about. But Vertigo comics? Looking at Wiki there has been Constantine, A History of Violence, Stardust, and V for Vendetta. Violence and Stardust aren't superhero movies obviously. I consider V for Vendetta to be a fantasy drama and Constantine to be borderline horror.
In any case Warners has handled their superheroes poorly in terms of movies. They don't give the lesser known characters much of a chance. If other studios had the rights to the lesser known superheroes I'd imagine we would have gotten many more DC comics movies over the years.
A History of Violence and Stardust weren't made by Warners actually. The film rights were creator-owned and went to other studios. And I'm not saying that the Vertigo movies are superhero movies, but DC's non-superhero comics are an important part of its publishing history, so I look at the superhero and non-superhero adaptations that have been.
Sure more films would have been made if the rights had been spread out between different studios. That stands to reason. But Warners has three DC films lined up for next year (one superhero and two non-superhero) - Green Lantern, Jonah Hex and The Losers - so let's see if that's a corner they're turning that will lead to more DC superhero films in the future.
I disagree that 20th Century Fox has done "a consistently poor job with Marvel's properties." Daredevil, X-Men, & X2 were all great. X-Men: The Last Stand was a disappointment but still pretty good (and made more money than either of its predecessors). So far, the only genuinely poor jobs I'd say they've done have been on Elektra & the Fantastic Four films. (I haven't seen Wolverine yet.)
I'd say V for Vendetta is too talky to be an action film but V is, ostensibly, a superhero. He even has a supernatural origin of sorts involving whatever medical experiments it was that the Sutler administration performed on him.
I wouldn't call Constantine a horror film, even borderline. It's an action movie and Constantine is a superhero, albeit one that doesn't wear a costume.
It certainly was in places. The scene where Bullseye stabs Elektra is nearly line-for-line exactly what Frank Miller wrote in the original comic. "You're good, baby. I'll give you that. But me, I'm magic."
Although, at one point, Marvel did try to sue Columbia to get back the rights to Spider-Man. They claimed that Columbia was infringing on Marvel's fair share of the merchandising market. IIRC, this was while Spider-Man 2 was still in production. There was some speculation at the time that Spider-Man 3 might have been made by a different studio altogether.
darkwing_duck1
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Fox's X films have had the burden of being saddled by a studio suit in charge who has never understood nor beleived in their potential. Singer had to fight tooth and nail with jerk-boy to make X1 and X2 as good as they were.
As for the F4. I LOVED these two. So did a lot of other people. They just weren't breakout hits like many other superhero films.
I think people who have problems with F4 1&2 are expecting them to be big set-piece action epics. F4 has never been about that. It's about the F4 family, and the two films delivered THAT spot on.
As for the F4. I LOVED these two. So did a lot of other people. They just weren't breakout hits like many other superhero films.
I think people who have problems with F4 1&2 are expecting them to be big set-piece action epics. F4 has never been about that. It's about the F4 family, and the two films delivered THAT spot on.
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