Marvel Studios to Produce Its Own Movies

Dekortage writes "According to the New York Times, Marvel Studios will be producing its own superhero movies instead of licensing the superheros to other Hollywood studios. It's all about the money: despite the enormous popularity of Sony Pictures' Spiderman 1 and 2, the licensing deal only netted Marvel $62 million. The article includes some tips about upcoming works: Edward Norton as Bruce Banner in a new Incredible Hulk, and Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark in Iron Man."

Snakes in the garden

How about Marvel do what's right for a change and pay the creators their fair dues [redherring.com].

Stan Lee Media sued Marvel Entertainment for $5 billion Thursday, claiming it co-owns Marvel's superhero characters, including Spider-Man, X-Men, and the Incredible Hulk.

The company is no longer owned by Stan Lee, the comic book legend who more recently hosted the TV series Who Wants to Be a Superhero? on the Sci-Fi Channel, which was produced by his latest company, Pow Entertainment.

In the suit, filed in the Southern District of New York, Stan Lee Media seeks to assert rights to the revenue generated by its superheroes that Marvel Entertainment is profiting from.

For Marvel to come out swinging at Hollywood on money rights is the pot calling the kettle black

Re:Snakes in the garden

The article you link to doesn't exactly prove your point. Stan Lee Media isn't owned by Stan Lee, they're using a loophole in an already existing contract to try to make money off of The Man's work.

A Marvel spokesperson declined to comment but later issued a statement from Mr. Lee: "I do not support this action and believe the suit to be baseless." Mr. Lee currently serves as publisher emeritus of Marvel Comics. He and Pow Entertainment could not immediately be reached for comment. In January, he filed suit against Mr. Nesfield and two of his associates alleging they illegally took over his former company and infringed on his trademarks and copyrights.

Re:Snakes in the garden

> How about Marvel do what's right for a change and pay the creators their fair dues.

How about NOT. Stan Lee was under the employ of Timely, now known as Marvel. Working for someone else is not like working for yourself. When you work for yourself, intellectual property rights and copyrights belong to you. That's the essence of creator owned properties. When you work for somebody else, work product becomes the property of your employer. It's the difference between writing homebrew game at home and designing one for EA. If you're on the clock it doesn't belong to you.

Present day Marvel doesn't have this trouble so much since they make a clear distinction between company owned and creator owned. In fact, there's even a label for Marvel published, creator owned works.

Just look back at your old Marvel comics. Go ahead. I'll still be here. ... ... ... ... Done? Good. Notice that there's a nice little copyright notice in the opening pages? Notice how it doesn't say anything about it being copyrighted to Stan Lee, but to Marvel instead? That's what I figured. Marvel has and continues to hold the rights to these properties, since day one.

This is an entirely different issue than the Superman or Captain America cases, since those cases refer to works originating decades earlier. I'm not going to check, but I wouldn't be surprised if the copyright laws saw some revisions between the 1940s and 1960s.

This is a case of Stan Lee's lawyers putting up the stink instead of him. Stan Lee was an EMPLOYEE. Show the man respect for the works he created, but aknowledge that he created them on company time.

Re:Snakes in the garden

Not to be redundant, but I think your point is that when a company hires someone for a creative job, they're gambling. They're paying that person a wage, presuming that the creative output of that person will bring them more revenues than his/her cost.

It's certainly hypocritical for that creative person then to come back later, after they've been successful, and demand more money. The company has absorbed the losses for all the failures, and should keep the benefits of the successes.

This has happened before

And we all know how well that worked with Capcom and the Street Fighter II movie.

Actors?

Edward Norton as Bruce Banner sounds kinda cool actually...but RDJ as Iron Man, I don't think Iron Man will be portrayed well hung over.

Re:Actors?

On the contrary, Tony Stark has been portrayed as a recovering alcoholic in the comics for decades now. If anything, RDJ wins extra points for knowing how to get in touch with the character ;-)

Re:Actors?

It was the never-ending alcoholism story that drove me to quit Iron man forever.
The idea of my "hero" crawling around puking and suffering DT's just didn't float my boat.

Re:Actors?

RDJ is a very good actor. I'm sure he can use those method acting skills to convincingly portray a man who has problems getting over a substance abuse problem.

---
And all I'm trying to say, is: Pearl Harbor sucked and I miss you. / I need you like Ben Affleck needs acting school, He was terrible in that film. / I need you like Cuba Gooding needed a bigger part, He's way better than Ben Affleck.

oh great...

having flashbacks of "wing commander" .. which is the result of what happens when a "game designer" decides to get into the business of making movies about his own stuff..

though, I guess that Marvel has enough money to make it 'look' exciting at any rate.

Still think they should leave the movie making to the pro's...

Re:oh great...

I think this could work quite well if, (and that may be a big IF), Marvel sticks to its strengths and brings in Hollywood talent to do the rest.

For example, if they have the artists and writers for the comic books create the storyboards for the movie, and have a good director actually use that as a base for the actual movie, they could create something pretty good.

The comic writers don't understand the difficulties of working with different camera angles or special effects, but the directors do. Of course, the directors probably don't understand the characters and would have a hard time getting the "comic book feel" right. Together, they could do both, which would make one hell of a movie. Maybe an iterative approach to the movie/story like they do at Pixar would work. Marvel puts together some storyboards, the directors go over them talking about what can be done, and what doesn't work technically and cinematically, and Marvel updates things. Repeat until both sides are happy. Schedule a blockbuster release date and collect your money.

Re:oh great...

I think this could work quite well if, (and that may be a big IF), Marvel sticks to its strengths and brings in Hollywood talent to do the rest.

There's a mighty thin line between "Hollywood" and "Marvel". Marvel's current comic writers include J. Michael Straczynski [wikipedia.org] of Babylon 5 fame and Josh Whedon [wikipedia.org] of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly/Serenity fame. I think both of these "comic writers" know a thing or two about writing and producing for the screen.

Why take on the risk?

Why not just make better licensing deals?

Re:Why take on the risk?

It's becoming apparent that there's a lot of money to be made off selling super hero movies when they are done right. The problem is, is that it's not proven as to whether or not Marvel can do it right. What they did was license the characters to the movie studio and got a $62 Million cheque. That's a pretty good sum of money for signing a piece of paper for the license rights, and not actually having to do any work. Making a good movie is not all that easy. Comics don't always lend themselves to a easy movie script.

Re:Why take on the risk?

Because other quality producers won't work for the better licensing terms.

And when you get down to only unproven or shakey characters willing to sign on to your blockbuster, it's a far riskier proposition -- particularly when crap movies have the very real ability to damage your franchise.
So why not just pick up a fairly competent producer or two and make your own studio?

Marvel wanted a better deal and they did just about the only thing they could to get it.

Because of Hollywood Accounting

Basically because of Hollywood Accounting [wikipedia.org].

In a nutshell, they calculate a shitload of costs (and often actually give that money to their daughter companies and such) as percentages of the income. E.g., marketting for the movie might be calculated as, say, 25% of the income, so even if your film sells a billion copies, that expense just increases accordingly. Often to the point where the movie _will_ look like it made them a loss, even if it became the greatest success of all time and sold a billion copies.

And since there is no time when you can say "ok, it's over", you can't even really call the bluff. There is no date when you can say "ok, it's over, let's divide the loot." There's always the DVD version, the Blue Ray version, the remastered edition, the "han shot third" edition, etc, so they can just say they earmarked those funds for marketting those. So, see, it's still not a profit, it's money your movie cost them.

It's not a joke, such movies as Forrest Gump or the LOTR movies, according to Hollywood, actually made a loss. Mind-boggling as that sounds.

_Why_ they do it, is so they can shaft you on royalties. Any contract where they promise you x% of the profit, is almost guaranteed to be x% of zero, since they'll massage it into looking like it made a loss.

Frankly, Marvel already made a damn good deal if they made anything at all.

Which also tells you why they'd rather take the risks. Because it beats getting shafted. Someone probably woke up to the reality that they got shafted again, and trying to get a better contract is like tilting at the windmills. So they're trying to avoid Hollywood, if they can.

Wouldn't even be the only one. The author of Forrest Gump, IIRC, also refused to sell them the rights to the sequel, after being shafted on the first (and thus only) movie. Since they said the first one made them a loss, he said something like that he can't in good conscience let any more money be wasted on a failure.

Marvel, on the other hand, obviously doesn't want to just give up on movies completely, like that guy did. So they're trying to do it themselves.

Well of course

I mean certified accounting shows both spider man I & II barely broke even. /wag

You startled me for a second there

I thought there was some new news from Marvel.
Like me and my comix geek buddies we were saying a few weeks ago: that Ironman suit looks pretty good!

Could it be possible to make superhero films WORSE

Before everyone cheers this notion, may I remind every of Marvel's *TERRIBLE* track record of creative endeavors where they "went it alone," and the resulting mess of legal entanglements that seem to follow them like the plague. It's easy to think of the Marvel movie franchise as this great thing, but before the modern incarnations of the X-men and Spiderman (produced through studio partnerships)--Marvel had a LONG and notorious history of bad films (anyone remember the 70's and 90's "Captain America" movies? The bad TV-series? The Roger Corman version of Fantastic Four?).

Marvel should stick with comic books. Making movies is a completely different endeavor--best left to the pros and not done "on the cheap" (as Marvel will likely try to do).

Re:Could it be possible to make superhero films WO

The Roger Corman version of Fantastic Four?

Oh, there's apparently a very interesting story behind that film. To quote its Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]:-

The Fantastic Four is an unreleased low-budget feature film completed in 1994. Created to secure copyright to the property, the producers never intended it for release -- although the director and other creators were not informed of this fact.

There's another article about it here [teako170.com], alongside the usual discussion at IMDB [imdb.com] (note that you need to register to view the forums).

I'm dubious.

1) My first reaction was that this was a good thing. One of the reasons Spider-Man is roundly regarded as the best of these movies is because it stays reasonably close to the source material. I just saw the new Fantastic Four movie and was left with the impression that they didn't grok the fundamentals of the series at all (Most notably in the abso-fuckin-lutely retarded "reimagining" of Dr Doom, one of Marvel's strongest characters ever...anyway).

2) But then I realized that it was Marvel's insistence on including Venom that ruined the last Spider-Man. The first two probably came out so well because Raimi himself was a fan, and probably understood the heart of the characters better than whatever goons are currently running Marvel.

3) Then I realized just how long it's been since I bought a new Marvel Comic (decades) versus how often I read old Marvel comics (weekly).

4) Crap.

Scarlet Witch

I don't really care who owes who but would be nice if they were to have Wanda the Scarlet Witch as in 1960's. Her costume like a Playboy bunny outfit, big hair, heavy makeup, long gloves, go-go boots,...

Re:Scarlet Witch

They make Scarlet Witch hand puppets?

Oh, Slashdot...

this is a dupe of an article here [slashdot.org] that had much more information and was more timely. I mean, that deal closed (and was in the news) in 2005. Nothing has changed since then, except the slate has gotten less certain and we've all gotten two years older.

Yay for content producers being able to make their own movies. Does that mean we'll get only good superhero movies from now on? Hell no. It means that we'll only have the producers to blame when the movie comes out bad - no more "They missed the WHOLE POINT of the origins of blah blah blah!" The image deal may have fallen through, but Marvel was still pretty sweet.

Old news?

Wasn't this whole thing about Marvel producing and financing its own movies announced about a year ago? Maybe a bit longer?

Marvel has even commented in recent months about happily bringing their licenses home, which would now make an Avengers movie more plausible.

I think that this "news" is only news because its a big comic convention week and comics have been gaining more mainstream attention.

A supremely stupid idea

Marvel Studios will be producing its own superhero movies instead of licensing the superheros to other Hollywood studios. It's all about the money

Desilu in it's prime had I Love Lucy and its successors, innovative series like The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible and Star Trek to its credit. But, in the end, it was too small and too fragile to survive as an independent studio.

Disney has a 75 year back list of marketable films, plus revenue streams from cable and broadcast TV, music sales, theme parks, stage productions, publishing, product licensing, etc., etc.

Yet how many times has a string of failures like Treasure Planet brought the studio to edge of bankruptcy?

Only $62 million...

Somehow I don't feel too sorry for Marvel -- first they profited from the comics and all their iterations, then without too much of their own effort, they get another huge payday, enough to fund their own movie production using a healthy chunk of the movie profits -- from works that were already paid for by comic book purchaser's $ years and years ago.

How many publishing companies of other more serious works would LIKE to be so lucky?

Comic Books are dying. They had to do something.

But this wasn't it. For the last year or so Marvel has been releasing some dumb-ass DVDs of "The Avengers" that really suck balls. I've seen them on Cartoon Network. Once was enough, thank you.

Here's the guts of the article detailing the incredible risk they are taking:

"What they've done is take themselves from a niche licensing company and have really knocked the cover off the ball as far as execution where the stock is concerned," said Brad Ruderman, of Ruderman Capital Partners. "If they can make appealing movies, I don't see any reason why they can't be successful."

But that if -- making successful movies -- has tripped up many a brilliant financial model in the past. And the favorable terms mask a hidden risk: If the movies are not successful, Marvel will forfeit the film rights to the characters in the deal, including Captain America, Thor, Nick Fury and the Avengers.(emphasis mine)

"It's a convoluted, almost Rube Goldberg-type apparatus for generating higher profitability with minimal risk," said Harold L. Vogel, of Vogel Capital Management. "But we all know the movie business depends on how profitability is defined. We know most movies do not actually make money, or a lot of money. So I don't know that they come out ahead at the end of the day, even when you adjust for risk and the time it takes. Why go through all this, except to generate fees for Merrill Lynch and some lawyers?"

Veteran Hollywood insiders raised other caveats about the Marvel arrangement, including the company's dependency on major studios for setting their marketing budgets and for overseeing distribution. The studios have been known to pay more attention to their own movies rather than those made elsewhere.

having them inhouse opens opportunity

If its taken seriously and decent directors, writers and producers can be found keeping the Marvel characters inhouse opens up possibilities that would exist otherwise. Movies about teams like the Avengers, Inhumans or Defenders simply couldnt be done due to licensing issues. Now by having the characters all in house Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and Hulk in the same movie is at least a possiblity.

I noticed alot of posts regarding the integrity of the films suffering if it was all in-house, but history has shown that licensing it out is the best way to completely ruin a beloved character. Look at the Hulk movie, great director, great actors and a writer who thought he could envision it better than the people who created it. The result was an utter disaster. Marvel needs the leverage to say Galactus isnt a cloud, there are no Hulk dogs, spider-man created his own webshooters, and most importantly, the creaters of the comic have envisioned their creation far better than some hack writer out to make a name for himself.

I am Bruce Banner's complete lack of surprise

Didn't Marvel already say they were going to do this? I could've sworn they did...

As for Edward Norton as Bruce Banner: I am Jack's trepidation.

Profit vs. risk

the licensing deal only netted Marvel $62 million

Oh boo hoo! They took virtually no financial risk, and they got a $62 million payday out of it? And what, we're supposed to feel sorry for the giant corporation?

Not enough ?!?

the licensing deal only netted Marvel $62 million.

Are you trying to imply that 62 MILLION dollars is not enough for a single SIGNATURE at the base of a contract ?!? Now at least they will have to do some work...

Superzeros suck anyways, don't you americans have any other form of comic book ? You know, like something the reader can identify with, with real stories and some brain instead of shiny muscles ? I mean, for one genius Hard Boiled or Sin City, you get 2000 garbage super/spider/whateverman comics that turn into even more horrendous movies.

CGI Versions of the Comics next

I always wondered why they didn't just do CGI films of the comics anyway. I'm guessing that the costs would probably be the same as hiring actors and creating the effects as it would with 100% CGI. The cartoon show X-men that used to come on was pretty good and it was just 2d drawn animation. They could then be 100% with the look and be true to the comics more than they could with actors.

I'm guessing this is their plan, since they've already made movies of most of their popular characters with live actors.

Roger Corman

Well at least they won't let Roger Corman do any more Marvel flicks... The Fantastic Four (1994) [imdb.com]

Only?

Only 62 million? For how much work? Talk about wanting the entire pie.

Wasn't the first Hulk bad enough?

Generally, sequals do not get better. And the first one was pretty darn bad. It was almost as bad as "Zombie Lake" - look up that winner on IMDB.

But to each his own.

Edward Norton as Bruce Banner?

I don't particularly dislike the idea of Edward Norton as Bruce Banner, but they just did a Hulk movie in 2003. It seems odd that they'd change actors so soon.

Re:The general public ...

Please, please, please, let's not forget Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. [wikipedia.org], starring David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury. Possibly the worst and most unintentionally funny movie ever made.

Re:Biker Mice from Mars

Fuck that shit, I want a jawsome Street Shark action movie. That would be fintastic!! Gimmie some dorsal!!