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

[packetmon]

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

This has happened before

[Anonymous Coward]

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

oh great...

[joeldg]

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...

Why take on the risk?

[p3d0]

Why not just make better licensing deals?

Re:Actors?

[Ucklak]

Isn't Iron Man (Tony Stark) hung over anyway?
RDJ seems fitting.

Could it be possible to make superhero films WORSE

[elrous0]

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).

I'm dubious.

[DwarfGoanna]

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.

Re:Actors?

[Planesdragon]

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.

You don't know Iron Man very well, then.

Scarlet Witch

[Anonymous Coward]

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:Why take on the risk?

[CastrTroy]

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:Snakes in the garden

[rsanta74]

> 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:Why take on the risk?

[*weasel]

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.

Re:A supremely stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Not ever?

Disney in the '80s was on the rocks, sure, and the Disney of the '90s was racking up the animated successes at the box office, but a relative flop like Treasure Planet is something a company like Disney can easily shrug off. The modern Disney is a highly diversified company, owning properties that you probably don't even realize are Disney companies. Disney is one of the Big Guys. As much as I'd rather not give Eisner credit for anything, he really put Disney on a more secure financial footing. If Disney wanted to turn out an endless series of animated flops, it could easily do so; it's just that Disney is a business, and if you can make more profit doing something else, why not?

Now, don't confuse the Disney company with the animation studio, which has fallen on hard times. Used to be an appropriately targeted Disney animated film was more or less a sure thing; what else were you going to take your kids to go see? With the advent of CGI, traditional animation (which I still love) has had a hard time competing (though Disney's deal with Studio Ghibli worked out quite well), and certainly hasn't been resourced at Disney to the same extent it used to be, even being killed off for a few years. John Lasseter has been pushing to bring it back since the Disney-Pixar merger, but who knows if there's still a mass audience for traditional animation anymore. Pixar and its CGI offerings pretty much own the family animated market these days; Disney's biggest competition is, ironically enough, the studio it now owns.

Personally, I don't think the Disney animation studio should be doing anything CGI at all; leave that to Pixar, which has the iron-clad track record in consumers' minds. Disney should be focusing the in-house animation studio on its traditional system. Unfortunately, Eisner scrapped it (one of his most atrocious decisions, in my view), and it's going to be hard to get that legacy back.

Re:oh great...

[Snowgen]

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.

Re:Because of Hollywood Accounting

[MrNiceguy_KS]

Having read "Gump and Co.", I'd say we didn't miss much. I thought it was clearly an attempt to cash in on the success of the movie. And later, having read "Forrest Gump", I gained a full understanding of why "Gump and Co." was so bad. It was because the scriptwriters for "Forrest Gump" took a mediocre book about an interesting idea for a character, and turned it into an incredibly good movie, but nobody took "Gump and Co." and turned it into something tolerable.

"Forrest Gump" is on my short list of book-movie translations where movie>book. The other two on my list are Last of the Mohicans and Fight Club. The difference being that the other books on the list were actually good.

Re:Snakes in the garden

[argStyopa]

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.

Re:Marvel, DC... do they have a printer's RIAA?

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Yep. I've even seen their offices. They're right across the street from my ATM machine that I access with my PIN number.

That's still no excuse for fraud

[Moraelin]

1. I'm sorry, but that's still no excuse for fraud and deceit. If you think someone's ideas or books are crap, then just offer less for them in the first place. Hiding money via generous transfers to daughter companies and bogus overhead rates, isn't the honest solution any way you want to slice it.

I mean, picture I offer you a generous 20% royalties if you let me make a movie based on your novel. Then somehow the movie actually does surprisingly well, but I come and say, "oh, sorry, we actually made a loss. See, Moraelin Film Marketting Inc. took 50% of the gross, and Moraelin Film Distributions Corp. took 30%, and Moraelin Props Inc took 15% for the sets, and the remaining 5% doesn't even cover the filming expenses. Those dastardly daughter companies made a tidy profit, but I made a loss, so I don't have to pay you anything." Regardless of whether it was a good novel or a bad novel, it's still dishonest. (Even if technically it might not be illegal.) I promised you some money, and did some siphoning to my other companies just to avoid paying it.

2. And the problem isn't just Forrest Gump, they do the same to better authors too. They even do it to other guys: e.g., at the bottom of it, that's why Peter Jackson isn't directing The Hobbit. They shafted him too. (And the actors too for merchandise rights, btw.) According to the studios, the LOTR movies actually made a big loss, somehow, so they don't have to pay any royalties.

Re:Why take on the risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

How many successful movies that originated from comics or animated series have their been lately (last 10 years)? Seems like a lot of these movies had more potential than was delivered. Perhaps they can do better than hollywood as they are more interested in the franchise as a whole

Successes

X-Men
Spiderman
Batman (2005)

Middle of road

Hellboy
Fantastic Four
Superman (2006)

Flops

Catwoman
Hulk
Daredevil
Elektra
Spawn
AEon Flux
Ghost Rider
Punisher

Re:Why take on the risk?

[SurturZ]

Perhaps this is about Marvel shifting its core business? Does anyone *start* reading comics nowadays, or is the comic book market an aging one?

Only?

[Jon-1]

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