Report: Marvel Comics to Cancel Fantastic Four

[MovieBob]

Report: Marvel Comics to Cancel Fantastic Four

Marvel reportedly ends the story of their "First Family" - did they do it to spite the new movie?

It's been the subject of industry gossip Hachette [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134945-RUMOR-Is-Marvel-Canceling-Fantastic-Four-Comics-to-Hurt-Foxs-New-Movie]) is as follows:


THE END IS FOUREVER! Witness the closing act on the First Family of the Marvel Universe! THE INVADERS meet the FANTASTIC FOUR as the hunt for REED RICHARDS and the missing kids of the FUTURE FOUNDATION continues. Meanwhile the mastermind behind everything unveils his ultimate plan. But how does FRANKLIN RICHARDS factor in? And how does this all lead to...The END?! Collecting FANTASTIC FOUR #642-644 and the Triple Sized Final Issue 645!


Not confirmed (but more heavily-rumored than ever) are the reasons why Marvel would choose to cancel the title credited with launching not only the company but the Silver Age of Comics in the 60s. Speculation and "insider" gossip has long suggested that the cancellation is the chiefly the desire of Ike Perlmutter, the famously-private (and reputedly mercurial [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/34fe39a6-e79f-11e1-8686-00144feab49a.html#axzz23viipiGS] Chief Executive of Marvel; who is said to be against "promoting" any characters or franchises whose feature-film rights are still owned by studios other than Marvel.

Fantastic Four film-rights currently reside at Fox, as do the X-Men - which has also seen its merchandising presence at Marvel drastically reduced amid the disputes between the two studios. There has not yet been a statement from Marvel as to the cancellation itself or whether it was motivated by a desire to minimize Fox's film version.


Source: Bleeding Cool [http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/10/05/confirmed-fantastic-four-to-be-cancelled-in-2015-with-a-triple-sized-issue-645-as-january-kicks-off-fantastic-fourever/]


[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/comics-and-cosplay/]

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[Mike Hoffman]

I maybe never kept up with FF, but I read plenty of back issues and all the Ultimate version. I really liked that series and I will probably wear my "4" shirt for the next week.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

Speculation and "insider" gossip has long suggested that the cancellation is the chiefly the desire of Ike Perlmutter, the famously-private (and reputedly mercurial Chief Executive of Marvel; who is said to be against "promoting" any characters or franchises whose feature-film rights are still owned by studios other than Marvel.

Can you blame him. Outside of Xmen and Spiderman, a lot of the films out there who's rights aren't with Marvel, must have damaged (or at least not improved ) sales, while I bet the Marvel owned film rights are doing amazing sales in comics and merch. (I have done zero research to back this up, but a guy in my local said its true)

Who can blame them for cutting off the limb. Kill off FF comics, and its one less way of advertising fox's film and more resources that can go towards promoting the holy jeebus out of the franchises they have film rights for and have developed or are developing.

If some day the FF rights come back to Marvel, I've heard it's been known to happen that comic book characters have been resurrected in the past, my mate in the pub said so.

 

[Redd the Sock]

I give is 3 months until a re-launch and it'll all have been a marketing ploy.

 

[go-10]

I doubt it's the end of the F4 or FF. This is probably Disney's way to fight back for movie rights. Besides F4 sales have been pretty bad for a while now. Honestly I don't really care, I love comics and read them on a weekly basis, but with so many Avengers teams to fit any of them into it's not like this is the last time we'll see this characters. Uncanny Avengers is missing a Hulk character so Ben can cover that spot, Invisible Woman and Mister Fantastic can take over Logan once he bites the dust, and Johnny is jsut another blue eyed blonde celebrity since he doesn't have any powers

 

[hermes]

I don't know how that is such a good idea (or even truth). After all, X-Men, Spiderman and Fantastic Four were the properties he and Arad sold for a reason... they are the most marketable properties Marvel has.

If the reason behind that is just Hollywood soreness, what is the next step? To cancel off Spiderman? I think, at this point, we should give Marvel more credit than that...

I think this is mostly a bluff to force the other studios to give them back their properties for cheap. Its not like they can't keep them in the freezer for years, or disband the characters so that they get to be part of other teams...

 

[Gizmo1990]

I love the FF but they have not been at there best for a long time now. When they apperaer in other books, either as a team or solo they are still great so I imagine that they will continue to show up in crossovers and then get a return after some time has passed. When exactly they do return is probebly dependent on how well the movie does.

 

[Heartsib]

Can you blame him. Outside of Xmen and Spiderman, a lot of the films out there who's rights aren't with Marvel, must have damaged (or at least not improved ) sales, while I bet the Marvel owned film rights are doing amazing sales in comics and merch. (I have done zero research to back this up, but a guy in my local said its true)

Merch? Most likely. Comics? Not so much if you check the sales estimates over at places like Comichron. Captain America's solo series, for example, moves just over 22K in the direct market and that's falling month by month, about in line with a lot of other Marvel solo series. GotG stuff is doing better, but with the exception of Rocket Racoon, they're not really setting the charts on fire (and Rocket's strong launch was largely due to an outside distribution deal). But the comics barely resemble the films at all, while the merch is overwhelmingly meant to appeal to the hundreds of thousands who are fans of the MCU. Spiderman, on the other hand, is doing just fine and Marvel is still promoting his books (but they also have a better working relationship with Sony than they do with Fox).

I'm not much convinced this is entirely about the movie rights. Marvel has out and out admitted that they're not going to be promoting the X-Men anymore, but the comics seem safe enough atm given their sales. The FF, on the other hand, get rebooted every year or so these days and it never seems to help the numbers long term. They could just finally be putting the brand on the shelf until a winning concept comes along.

I am curious to see how Putterman's supposed edict against promoting X-Characters holds up now that Fox has confirmed a film starring perennial merch-machine Deadpool, though.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

@Heartsib I doubt a hundred bad (lacklustre?)Spidey films will hurt the comic too much

Heres hoping the Deadpool film is as fun as the "leaked" trailer, I hope they shoot for R/18, it'll get the boxoffice.

is that two guys in your profile pic

 

[Something Amyss]

I feel like this is the 500th time this rumour has come up. It may be "more rumoured than ever," but it still hasn't happened yet.

Can you blame him. Outside of Xmen and Spiderman, a lot of the films out there who's rights aren't with Marvel, must have damaged (or at least not improved ) sales, while I bet the Marvel owned film rights are doing amazing sales in comics and merch. (I have done zero research to back this up, but a guy in my local said its true)

Last I saw, there hadn't been a significant boost to sales for most of the MCU-related comics. I heavily doubt that there's been harm to any of the other comics, even when you preclude Spider-Man and X-Men. And killing the comic because the movie didn't raise sales is inane.

If some day the FF rights come back to Marvel, I've heard it's been known to happen that comic book characters have been resurrected in the past, my mate in the pub said so.

I doubt that it'll even come to that.

If the reason behind that is just Hollywood soreness, what is the next step? To cancel off Spiderman? I think, at this point, we should give Marvel more credit than that...

Well, they're killing Wolverine for "real this time."

I seriously think they overestimate their influence on the movies, but....

 

[P-89 Scorpion]

I don't know how that is such a good idea (or even truth). After all, X-Men, Spiderman and Fantastic Four were the properties he and Arad sold for a reason... they are the most marketable properties Marvel has.

If the reason behind that is just Hollywood soreness, what is the next step? To cancel off Spiderman? I think, at this point, we should give Marvel more credit than that...

I think this is mostly a bluff to force the other studios to give them back their properties for cheap. Its not like they can't keep them in the freezer for years, or disband the characters so that they get to be part of other teams...

Marvel is irrelevant they are owned by Disney who are evil and they hate Fox so yeah FF cancelled and Wolverine being killed off do not expect them back anytime soon.

To Disney the comics are after all irrelevant (The Avengers film made more revenue than all Marvel comics sold combined in the last 10 years) it's the films they care about and the merchandise they sell based off those films if they have to kill off characters for 10 years while other studios own those characters then so be it.

I don't think Spider man is in any danger though because Sony gets on with all the film studios as they are not a media first company and are a little separate from how the others are more competitive especially those who have competing US TV stations were a lot more money is at stake.

 

[RJ 17]

I'm pretty sure that Fox is doing everything in their power to "minimize" the upcoming Fantastic Four movie without Marvel needing to help out by cancelling the comic book series.

We've got a brother and sister of different races.
We've got a super-scientist that looks like he's 23.
And we've got a Dr. Doom that looks like he's the High Command General of the Putty Patrol from Power Rangers:

Spoiler: See what I mean?

And to top it all off, they've declared that they have no intention of basing the movie off the source material.

Soooo yeah, it seems as though Fox is hell-bent on running this franchise even further into the ground than their first two movies already did.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I am curious to see how Putterman's supposed edict against promoting X-Characters holds up now that Fox has confirmed a film starring perennial merch-machine Deadpool, though.

I dunno, maybe he has an aneurysm? Seriously, I would pay to see his reaction if Deadpool ends up being a hit.

 

[immortalfrieza]

Uh huh, right... Marvel is going to kill one of it's main cashcow comics. I give it a year, tops, before Fantastic Four is back like nothing happened.

 

[PunkRex]

If some day the FF rights come back to Marvel, I've heard it's been known to happen that comic book characters have been resurrected in the past, my mate in the pub said so.

He sounds like he's talking shit to me.

OT: Given how the films set shots have been received by fans this seems unnecessary.

 

[Darks63]

I really hope they are not going to go with the " take my ball and go home" strategy in order to try to get the film rights to their wayward franchises back. If they do this it will sabotage any future efforts with any non marvel controlled studios.

 

[Siege_TF]

Didn't they already do this once? The Celestials came to earth, everyone panicked, and eventually Dr. Doom killed them (The Celestials) one at a time with the Infinity Gauntlet. Or something like that. Deadpool's comic has died at least once too IIRC.

 

[Baresark]

I know of a reason besides the film they would do this. The book hasn't been good a long time. They let writers destroy and disfigure it. Claremont was the last good writer they had on it. He was the last writer that wrote anything that felt remotely like the FF. Not that the other writers aren't good writers, they just didn't write the FF well at all.

 

[Ticklefist]

This comic gets canceled every year to make room for a fresh new #1 issue.

 

[Grabehn]

For some reason, the first thing I thought when I read the title was "YES, no movie with shit casting" and then read again and saw it was the comics, and though "Nooo, there's still a movie."

I've never read any comics at all, but judging by how this things tend to work, I seriously doubt they'll actually "end" it.