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Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread

What grade would you give the Marvel Cinematic Universe? (Ever-Changing Question)

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Does anyone know if Cox and D'Onofrio are actually on less money ?

Certainly Cox and probably D'Onofrio have a higher profile since the Netflix DD show. Market forces may well have given them more marketability in new contract discussions.
 
I still think that this Daredevil show won't be a continuation of the Netflix show. They're almost certainly going to throw out the Netflix show's (unique, aka not comic based) plot stuff, Daredevil probably won't be quitting superhero-ing/refusing to wear his costume multiple times a season, Kingpin has at least borderline super powers, etc. I'm sure the end result will be almost completely incompatible with the Netflix stuff (hopefully with Elektra and Bullseye specifically being more comic accurate if they show up). I really don't see them continuing on any of the plot points or even general tone of the Netflix show, even if they end up using a bit of casting and maybe some aesthetic stuff.

Honestly, as of right now the netflix crew doesn't deserve to be paid for the MCU show any more then Ben Affleck does. Most of the similar elements are stuff from the comic books, and all anyone can currently claim came from the Netflix show is two (potentially three) casting choices, and possibly the use of the Netflix theme in a soundtrack. Now, hypothetically the MCU show could end up being much more connected, but I seriously doubt it, and until more evidence comes out I don't think that Disney owes anyone from the old show money for this new project.
 
Okay, I went back through Steven DeKnight's X/Twitter timeline to see what he actually said, which took a while, because he posts frequently. It looks like his initial comment on September 18 was in response to this post the day before in which an IATSE grip said, "And not only did they cancel Daredevil once crew got full raise and holiday/vacation pay…. The Disney+ reboot is back to season one IATSE contract terms." So the issue is not about Cox or D'Onofrio, who are presumably SAG, but about the crewmembers who make the show, who are covered by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. A number of industry professionals have chimed into the conversation to confirm that this happens with numerous shows, that the same cast and crew are kept on when a show is retitled and reset to season 1 contract terms, so everyone gets paid less. So I was mistaken to say before that it's an exception for Disney to do it. Apparently it's become increasingly common in the industry. Just one of the many ways management screws over the talent, which is why they're striking.

DeKnight goes on to say that it's common in streamers to cancel a show after 3 seasons unless it's a megahit, "due to their upfront payment structure for the backend." Continuing a show under a slightly different title and format is a way to get around that.

The basis of DeKnight's position is stated in this tweet: "Because a reboot means you’re starting from scratch. It’s not a reboot if you have the same lead playing the titular character." He also says a bit later that he believes the events of his DD series will be acknowledged in Born Again, in which case it isn't a new continuity.

DeKnight also says, "Look, for me it’s not any amount of money that matters, so I really don’t care.... But for other shows where they screw the crew out of bumps by slightly changing the name or location of a show, I think it really stinks." Once again, all this tunnel-vision arguing over whether it applies to Daredevil is missing the point that DeKnight is not really talking about Daredevil. He's just using it to call attention to his main concern, which is the way the crews of Disney's kids' and young-adult shows get screwed over by the reset practice.
 
Oh yeah, I definitely agree that is a horrible thing for them to do.
Christopher said:
The adaptation would be, but all adaptations have to license the character from the same owner, because the character is legally the same entity no matter how they're reinterpreted. The producers of the adaptation may have the rights to the adaptation itself and anything original to it, but they're only borrowing the pre-existing character and universe from the original owners. (Which is why Marvel can no longer publish comics about ROM the Spaceknight, since they no longer have the license to the toy character, but they can still use the Dire Wraiths and other concepts they created for the ROM comics, since those are original to Marvel. And it's why DC didn't publish any Batman '66 comics for decades, because that was a 20th Century Fox show and DC didn't have the rights to its original characters like King Tut or Egghead.)
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OK now I understand. Before, I knew that the company who released the original version of the would own the rights to the character in the adaptation, but I had assumed those rights would be totally different from the original version. So to use your Batman '66 example, they'd own all of their characters who appeared on the show, but they'd be separate from the comics, or TAS, or Burtonvese versions.


Yes, that is Steven DeKnight's point, that this is a Disney practice.
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OK.
Christopher said:
The whole point is that it shouldn't come down to title alone. That's why DeKnight calls Disney's practice a scam, because they're treating their retitled, slightly reformatted continuations as new shows when they're actually not. The point is that if they were honest about it, they would admit they're continuations and pay the cast and crew accordingly, as was done in the other cases you mention.




Again, that's the point -- that Disney uses new titles as an excuse for restarting the contracts. And DeKnight is saying a new title shouldn't be enough justification to do that.
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Yeah, I get all of that now.
 
JD said:
OK now I understand. Before, I knew that the company who released the original version of the would own the rights to the character in the adaptation, but I had assumed those rights would be totally different from the original version. So to use your Batman '66 example, they'd own all of their characters who appeared on the show, but they'd be separate from the comics, or TAS, or Burtonvese versions.
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Any character that originated in the comics belongs to DC, period, regardless of how they're changed for an adaptation. It's the new characters and story elements created for the adaptation that are copyrighted by the makers of the adaptation. Although I imagine it might also apply to specific elements of a licensed character that are changed for a licensed adaptation, like costume designs, say.

And there's a difference between ownership and copyright. One entity can own a concept or character, but another entity may have the exclusive right to the specific stories they're licensed to tell about it, which is why only Sony can make Spider-Man movies even though Spider-Man belongs to Marvel. Licensing is basically buying the exclusive right to use the property in a certain form from its owner. It's not unlike when I sell an original story or novel -- I own the story, but the publisher I sell it to buys the exclusive right to publish it for the term specified in the contract, so I couldn't republish it myself or sell it to someone else until the contracted term expired.
 
I still think Daredevil is a different beast and shouldn't have been used as an example because years have passed and it ended its original run completely, contracts ended and that was that.

Is it the same behind the scene crew working on Daredevil or did they move on in the 5 years to other work?
Doing a google search, there is no shared Producer, executive producers, Creator, cinematographers, writers, editor...

For all intents and purposes, this is a new show. Like Justified. Frasier. Star Trek: Picard (Season 3). And any number of shows that can use the same lead actors and characters but are basically all new behind the scenes and probably start again with their contracts (though I would imagine the leads do quite well as their "start".) This is even assuming the continuity is the same

Disney may do this with kids shows like Zac and Cody live on a plane or whatever, since that's a continuous production with no halt besides the normal between seasons hiatus, but to bring Daredevil into the conversation seems more like they're bringing it up because people perk up when they hear "Marvel".
 
Wasn't Daredevil cancelled for specific reasons anyway? I can't remember if Netflix did it, or it was cancelled to not compete with Disney streaming stuff, but it definitely wasn't cancelled in some long term evil scheme to bring it back almost a decade later to screw certain people out of money. Marvel TV is gone, and the (mostly incompetent) people who ran it gone as well. They ran the Netflix shows, and obviously never really worked well with the MCU, their stuff was always going to get mostly shoved aside anyway.

The Netflix show can get credit for good casting, but I'm convinced that this new Daredevil show is going to be what the MCU wants a Daredevil show to be, and probably would have still been put on the schedule even if Charlie Cox had declined to return, so (unless proven otherwise) I don't think its the same show, and I don't think its part of some scheme to keep money out of the Netflix production people's hands.
 
Marvel TV is gone, and the (mostly incompetent) people who ran it gone as well. They ran the Netflix shows, and obviously never really worked well with the MCU, their stuff was always going to get mostly shoved aside anyway.
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I never had any real problems with most of the Marvel TV content before 2020. Granted, they weren't perfect. But if I must be brutally honest, those TV shows, especially "Agents of SHIELD" made it possible for me to endure the MCU between 2015 and 2020.
 
M'rk son of Mogh said:
I still think Daredevil is a different beast and shouldn't have been used as an example because years have passed and it ended its original run completely, contracts ended and that was that.
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Well, for the umpteenth time, it doesn't matter how good an example Daredevil is, because DeKnight wasn't complaining about Daredevil. He was using the conversation about Daredevil to start a conversation about a wider problem involving multiple other shows. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be a stepping stone to the real conversation.

However, from what DeKnight said, it would depend on the specific terms of the contracts. Which suggests that some contracts do account for the possibility of a future revival.


Is it the same behind the scene crew working on Daredevil or did they move on in the 5 years to other work?
Doing a google search, there is no shared Producer, executive producers, Creator, cinematographers, writers, editor...
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There are hundreds of people involved in making a show. IATSE covers technicians, artisans, and craftspeople, so we're talking everything from stagehands to production assistants to lighting and electrical crew to hair and makeup to costumers to camera crew to set decorators and builders to prop makers, pretty much everything. I'd be very surprised if there weren't a fair number of technical personnel in common, just given the sheer number of people involved.

And even if there aren't, it may not matter. I get the impression from the Twitter conversation that the entire crew, whether new or old, would get paid better for a fourth-season show than for a first-season show. At least, that's what seemed to be implied by the original post that DeKnight was responding to.



For all intents and purposes, this is a new show.
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That remains to be seen. If DeKnight is correct that Born Again acknowledges continuity from the Netflix show, that means it is a continuation, and the developers of that show would be entitled to credit and residuals.



Like Justified. Frasier. Star Trek: Picard (Season 3). And any number of shows that can use the same lead actors and characters but are basically all new behind the scenes and probably start again with their contracts (though I would imagine the leads do quite well as their "start".)
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"Probably?" So you're assuming that you, an outsider making guesses, are more qualified to talk about TV contracts than a man who's been working in the TV industry for 24 years. This is why I can't stand armchair quarterbacks.


Disney may do this with kids shows like Zac and Cody live on a plane or whatever, since that's a continuous production with no halt besides the normal between seasons hiatus, but to bring Daredevil into the conversation seems more like they're bringing it up because people perk up when they hear "Marvel".
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You're getting it backward. DeKnight didn't bring Daredevil into the conversation. The conversation began with someone on Daredevil: Born Again's crew talking about the contract he was working under, and DeKnight picked up on it to bring a larger issue into the conversation. People pay a lot of attention to Marvel, so that gave DeKnight an opportunity to call people's attention to something that happens with less well-known shows.
 
Christopher said:
"Probably?" So you're assuming that you, an outsider making guesses, are more qualified to talk about TV contracts than a man who's been working in the TV industry for 24 years. This is why I can't stand armchair quarterbacks.
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Probably does mean that I don't know, correct.
But are you telling me you think there's a stronger possibility that, to use an example with names I know, Terry Matalas got paid with a season 10 The Next Generation contract or season 3 of Picard? It's a pretty good guess that's honestly (be honest) almost certain that we know how the studios drew the contracts. It's identical to Daredevil: Born Again season 1. And it's a fair one.

You're getting it backward. DeKnight didn't bring Daredevil into the conversation. The conversation began with someone on Daredevil: Born Again's crew talking about the contract he was working under, and DeKnight picked up on it to bring a larger issue into the conversation. People pay a lot of attention to Marvel, so that gave DeKnight an opportunity to call people's attention to something that happens with less well-known shows.
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Yup, my bad, I did get that backwards. And it's good that the issue got brought up, just funny how it piggy backed off of a Marvel show that didn't quite fit his issue to me.
 
M'rk son of Mogh said:
But are you telling me you think there's a stronger possibility that, to use an example with names I know, Terry Matalas got paid with a season 10 The Next Generation contract or season 3 of Picard? It's a pretty good guess that's honestly (be honest) almost certain that we know how the studios drew the contracts. It's identical to Daredevil: Born Again season 1. And it's a fair one.
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I'm saying that we should have the humility to admit that we don't know enough to say anything for sure, instead of assuming we're required to make something up to fill the gap. I'm saying that if something an expert says doesn't make sense to us, the deficiency is more likely ours than theirs, and it's pure egotism to pretend otherwise.
 
Christopher said:
Any character that originated in the comics belongs to DC, period, regardless of how they're changed for an adaptation. It's the new characters and story elements created for the adaptation that are copyrighted by the makers of the adaptation. Although I imagine it might also apply to specific elements of a licensed character that are changed for a licensed adaptation, like costume designs, say.
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I understand that all of the versions of Batman belong to DC, but what I thought was that every version of Batman who appeared in an adaptation was a separate completely unique character when it came to the rights. So if they had a giant database of all of the stuff they owned somewhere, than rather than one entry for all Batmans (Batmen?), you'd have separate entries for the comics Batman, the Dark Knight trilogy Batman, the BTAS Batman, ect. And if I wanted to do a crossover story where they all met, I'd have to negotiate seperately for each one.
And there's a difference between ownership and copyright. One entity can own a concept or character, but another entity may have the exclusive right to the specific stories they're licensed to tell about it, which is why only Sony can make Spider-Man movies even though Spider-Man belongs to Marvel. Licensing is basically buying the exclusive right to use the property in a certain form from its owner. It's not unlike when I sell an original story or novel -- I own the story, but the publisher I sell it to buys the exclusive right to publish it for the term specified in the contract, so I couldn't republish it myself or sell it to someone else until the contracted term expired.
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Oh yeah, I know that, I might have just explained what I was talking about badly.
 
JD said:
I understand that all of the versions of Batman belong to DC, but what I thought was that every version of Batman who appeared in an adaptation was a separate completely unique character when it came to the rights. So if they had a giant database of all of the stuff they owned somewhere, than rather than one entry for all Batmans (Batmen?), you'd have separate entries for the comics Batman, the Dark Knight trilogy Batman, the BTAS Batman, ect. And if I wanted to do a crossover story where they all met, I'd have to negotiate seperately for each one.
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"Separate" is quite an overstatement when it's just a variation on the same character, and by definition something can't be unique when there's more than one of it. The fundamental rights always belong to the original owner; licensees just pay for the use of the character. They might have control over the specific variations they add to the character -- a particular costume/appearance, a particular vehicle design, a particular twist on their backstory -- but that doesn't make the character a separate entity. It just means that rights are complicated and more than one entity can have partial rights to the same thing. Which is why it took decades for DC to untangle the various companies' rights to Batman '66 so they could acquire them all and be free to publish comics based on it.
 
It is getting a little scary when a movie has to make almost 1/2 a billion dollars just to make a profit.
 
JD said:
It is getting a little scary when a movie has to make almost 1/2 a billion dollars just to make a profit.
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More like 650m+, really.

I don't expect The Marvels to be unable to reach that, but, yeah, it's really ridiculous that it needs to go so high just to start making a profit.
 
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