tdylan said:
What I don't get is, why are they thinking "making it cheap and shitty to keep Marvel from getting it back and making money off of it," as opposed to "make it well, so that we can get in the "money printing" business that marvel is in, while still accomplishing the task of keeping the rights from reverting,"?
Here's what I think. They don't want to make shitty movies. They just don't seem to be in position to get it right.
There seem to be some structural differences between Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox:
Marvel is semi-independent, or at least somewhat autonomous. Disney?s extremely long leash allows Marvel to do their own thing; they can essentially do all the movies they want without having to worry about things like scheduling or marketing. The way they work with actors, directors, and filmmakers in general seems to slightly differ from Hollywood's standard procedure, too.
Fox, on the other hand, is a huge studio. They have to juggle way more disparate film projects at the same time, do the marketing, work out a release schedule for everything and so on. They simply can't concentrate on the task of establishing a shared universe.
Either way, why not give it back? The way I see it there's some sort of intense rivalry going on. Compare it to Marvel and Sony (owners of the Spider-Man franchise) who get along a lot better. Ever wondered why Spidey's on the <link=http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20140615212152/marveldatabase/images/2/23/Marvel_75th_Anniversary_Magazine_Vol_1_1_Textless.jpg>cover of Marvel's 75th anniversary magazine? There's no member of the X-Men or Fantastic Four to be seen, even though both franchises are way more important to Marvel's history than the Guardians of the Galaxy (who feature prominently).
There are also more Spider-Man toys than there are FF or X-Men toys, even though the X-Men are the most popular comic book series in Marvel's stable. Sony and Marvel came to an agreement that gives Marvel all the rights to merchandising Spider-Man, while Sony gets to keep everything they make with the movies. The result of this is better marketing and increased profits for both companies.
Fox meanwhile didn't want to play ball. They are big enough to live with making some money (or no money) as long as their rival doesn't profit from any of it either.