Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

And Larry is, just for those who weren't aware, Stan Lee's brother.

 

So with Disney and ScarJo having made nice does this mean that the Russo's "Secret Wars" is back on?

 

What if the Hulk had been an outright villain, or at least villainous, rather than join the team in the first The Avengers?

 

I have mixed feelings on this, on one hand these people created characters who have literally made Marvel billions of dollars, and the people who created these characters and/or their families definitely deserve to get a lot more of that money and recognition than they have been getting. But at the same time, they had to have gone into this know that they were creating these characters for the companies and not for themselves.
Obviously they're not going to give complete control of the characters to the original creators or there families, but it would be nice if they maybe give them a little more than what they've been giving them. There have been cases where creators of popular characters have ended up broke, even though the characters they created are still making regular appearances in comics, movies, shows, ect, and that is just ridiculous.

 

A big issue is the hypocrisy. It's ok for companies to get copyright law changed every few years to prevent works from ever entering the public domain, but by god if the person who ever actually created a character/story line asks for a fraction of a billion dollar box office "You know the law, you were a contract hire, we don't owe you anything, ya greedy bastard!"

 

Oh, I'm all for Disney giving the creators/families a "bonus", I think DC/WB actually does that sometimes. There is nothing wrong with people getting some money for something they were a part of creating. I just don't believe that those people should own the properties. They knew what they were doing when they created the characters, so trying to get the rights "back, when they never owned the rights to begin with, is something I don't agree with.

But, since Disney still doesn't even want to pay royalties on books (and comics, I think) that they are actually legally supposed to be paying (arguing that they should not have to pay writers for stories they bought out, and fighting every time they have to like with Alan Dean Foster), I don't see Disney giving much to anyone just out of the "goodness of their hearts".

I mean, that was the job. They were hired to produce things for a company, not for themselves. I think it would be nice for the companies to give them something just because they're making so much money off the stuff, but the creators/estates have absolutely no argument (in my opinion) that they own anything or are really owed anything.

 

And Disney & it's subsidiaries knew copyright laws when they "created" the characters. Doesn't stop them from lobbying to have the law changed everytime a character comes close its public domain date. Why is it ok for them to do that, and not for creators to turn around and ask for funds from revenue streams they never could have ever anticipated existing when they signed the original contracts?

 

They knew they didn't own the characters. The revenue streams don't matter, the comic creators were working for the company and the company owned the things they made. If they didn't like it, they could have tried to go and build their own comic company, or just found a different industry to work in.

You're copyright discussion has nothing to do with the companies owning the characters we're talking about right now, with the exception of a few of the late 30s/early 40s characters who might have been public domain by now. Revenue streams only make sense when talking about things like movies and TV, which dealt with new types of royalties as things like streaming were invented. Comics didn't have royalties of any kind for decades, and even today they only (sometimes) have royalties from comic reprints, not from use of characters because the characters are owned by the companies. No creator who worked for DC/Marvel is owned a cent from things like movies unless there was some kind of contract or contract violation involved. I think it would be nice if Disney kicked back some money when using a character in a major role in a movie, but its as a nice thing to do, not a requirement.

Steve Gerber learned all this in his crusade to try to take the rights to Howard the Duck, a character he created but never owned and (rightfully, in my opinion) got his ass kicked in court.

Personally, when it comes to the public domain, as long as a character is being used by the company/group that made it, I don't think they should ever be public domain. No random person should have the right to ever do stuff with, say, Mickey Mouse just because Walt Disney is dead. I'm looser with individual creators work (Sherlock Holmes being public domain makes sense), but Mickey Mouse is the icon of a huge company that has been using him for decades, so public domain shouldn't apply there and I'll never mind Disney fighting to keep their stuff. But, again, the public domain argument has nothing to do with creators trying to basically steal rights they never had to characters they created.

 

Looks like Blade is coming a lot sooner than we thought:



And yes, this is from Marvel India's official account.

https://twitter.com/Marvel_India/st...://www.cbr.com/marvel-blade-mcu-release-date/

 

Maybe it's a mistake? I thought they weren't supposed to start filming until July 2022.
If true then things came together for them really quickly to get this out so fast.

 

The oct 7 2022 date was a known release date for an mcu movie that wasn't revealed. But that date was already pushed back to oct 6 2023.

This is probably a mistake which coincidentally reveals we can expect Blade for Halloween 2023.

 

Yeah, they can crank these movies out pretty fast these days, but exactly one year from now seems a little too fast for a film that hasn't even started filming yet.

I remember those rumors about a Werewolf by Night Halloween special on Disney+ next year. I wonder if whoever plays him will show up in Blade (or vice versa) because I'm fully expecting Marvel to build up to an MCU version of the Midnight Sons/Nightstalkers with Blade, Moon Knight, Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider, etc., with Doctor Strange bringing the group together.

 

Blade on October 7th and then The Marvels on November 11th.

That's really close together. Other than the first two MCU movies (Iron Man came out on May 2nd and The Incredible Hulk came out on June 13) the MCU has pretty much kept the minimum about 2 months between movies.

I think it's pretty likely an error and it's not coming out on October 7th.

 

Yeah, Oct. of next year does seem to soon for Blade.

 

WandaVision spinoff featuring Agatha Harkness in the works, as per Variety.

https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/wandavision-spinoff-kathryn-hahn-1235082445/

 

Hell, yeah!

They have a theme song already to go!

 

I wonder how they'll explain her breaking free from the brainwash that Wanda left her in.

 

Interesting and unexpected. What would it be about? I'm not chomping at the bit to see it but hey, it's marvel, they already have my money.

 

They could use the show as an excuse to introduce more Marvel magic users, maybe Agatha has a friend/enemy/etc who tries to find her and ends up freeing her. It could be some weird, obscure Marvel hero (like, say, Dr. Druid) or even someone like Nicholas Scratch, aka the evil son of Agatha Harkness in the comics.

Or maybe Agatha is too strong to be kept under the control of Wanda's magic for long when Wanda isn't actively there enforcing the spell. Wanda may have more raw power then Agatha, but she's inexperienced and I could see her effect on Agatha not lasting like she thought it would, especially since she just did it and left and probably won't be checking up on Agatha anytime soon.

 

A few quick points.

First, back in the late 30s/early 40s, there were lots of independent comic companies. However, as often happens, many were bought out or forced out of business by the companies that eventually because DC and Marvel. For a look at how truly ugly this sometimes got, please see the example of DC suing Fawcett (publisher of Captain Marvel, now Shazam) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Comics_Publications,_Inc._v._Fawcett_Publications,_Inc.

Also, comics and other things like movies, syndicated TV, etc. are dependent on the distributor(s). While those are (mostly) unproven, the comic companies who survived often did so because of tight ties with distributors. For example, in 1937, DC was in debt to Harry Donenfeld, who was a pulp magazine publisher, printing-plant owner, and magazine distributor, so they ended up taking him on as a partner. Marvel's founder, Martin Goodman, also owned a newsstand-distribution company. I think they call that "vertical integration" now.

Second, revenue streams are somewhat relevant because nobody in those early days could have foreseen the movie, merchandising, and later TV and now digital money that these characters would bring in.

Third, you are incorrect about royalties. This has changed A LOT in the last few decades, thanks to organizing by creators since about the late 60s. When I saw Denny O'Neil at a con not long before his death in 2020, he said he'd gotten a check recently for an appearance by Maxie Zeus, a character he created for Batman comics in the 70s/80s. It all depends on your contract. George Perez was able to retire recently (health problems) because of the contracts he had with DC. The late comics writer Len Wein said he received more payments from Lucius Fox's appearance in the Batman films — he co-created the character — than he did for another co-creation, Wolverine, despite the success of the X-Men films (https://smallbusiness.chron.com/much-comic-book-artist-make-per-project-12942.html). Obviously, the more popular the character and/or creator, the more leverage they have in their contract negotiations.