Marvel May Have Snatched Fantastic Four Movie Rights - Update

[fix-the-spade]

I can't help but feel that Marvel/Disney will get all their characters back just in time for the bottom to fall out of the MCU. They're upping and upping the number of movies being chucked out, three a year is pushing it and people can get sick of a good thing.

On the other hand, more characters out of the hands Fox is good news.

 

[Zontar]

This news (and the debunking of it) really makes me wonder what Marvel is getting out of allowing Fox to make 2 series for FX in the X-men universe, because that isn't something Fox had the right to do and required Marvel, and there's no way Marvel would greenlight it only for the money of co-producing two series. There's something more here, and the reason the rumour happened was it made sense, but now that it's been debunked that begs the question what was the deal they made for the two series to be greenlite?

 

[medv4380]

Yesssssss. I honestly don't care much for the Fantastic Four, but Doom is one of the best villains ever created, and Silver Surfer is pretty cool too.

Come now. Doom's not the bad guy. Reed's the bad guy they really need.

 

[Evonisia]

So long as the X-Men stay with Fox I'm not too fussed with what characters Marvel gets from them. The MCU has really started feeling like an assembly line of films lately, but it's not like Fox has ever demonstrated much care about the fantastic four themselves anyway.

 

[Darth_Payn]

If Fox won't give up the Fantastic 4 movie rights back to Marvel, Marvel should just threaten to cancel the X-Men TV deal to force Fox's hand.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I hope they don't try to force F4 in to the current Infinity Stone story arc they have going right now.

 

[Jake Martinez]

The Fantastic Four has long been one of my favorite comic books and it's especially good when they go for that throwback pulpy adventure feel to their storylines and mostly stay out of whatever lame drama is going on in the main 616 universe, so if they do manage to realize a F4 movie then I hope that Marvel has the foresight to play to the strengths of the characters and their themes.

 

[Trek1701a]

From a story perspective, I can't imagine that getting the actual Fantastic Four was a main goal, although I'm sure they want to get all of their characters under one roof again, but the big draw to this has to be the secondary characters and villains.

Knowing that they could potentially put Galactus in a future movie, maybe a future Guardians of the Galaxy or depending which way they take it Captain Marvel. Or that Doom could show up just about anywhere, since he has been in everyone's business.

Plus there is Silver Surfer and who knows if they might fit him into the Infinity Gauntlet/Stones storyline.

 

[DoctorM]

I have an uncomfortable feeling that part of the deal will involve this being the final seasons of Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter.

To be fair, neither show is doing well, but it sounds like the X-men series are a bit redundant.
AoS is all about building an Inhumans team right now and Carter is a late 40's period show.
Fox will be making a team building X-men series and an early 50's period show?

I think Disney/Marvel may have realized there isn't a lot of money in TV. It makes sense to let someone else do the work.
Look at how much DC doesn't care what happens on TV to their characters (which is why they don't suck). It's all about the theatrical films.

 

[Damian Porter]

I have an uncomfortable feeling that part of the deal will involve this being the final seasons of Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter.

To be fair, neither show is doing well, but it sounds like the X-men series are a bit redundant.
AoS is all about building an Inhumans team right now and Carter is a late 40's period show.
Fox will be making a team building X-men series and an early 50's period show?

I think Disney/Marvel may have realized there isn't a lot of money in TV. It makes sense to let someone else do the work.
Look at how much DC doesn't care what happens on TV to their characters (which is why they don't suck). It's all about the theatrical films.

Umm, no. Marvel isn't doing an X-Men TV show because they didn't have the film rights. The only reason they are letting Fox do the TV show is because Marvel is getting something out of it.

 

[JohnZ117]

english isnt my first language but isnt the tittle supposed to say might instead of may?

Both would work in this situation. Btw, in contractions, such as isn't or they're, an apostrophe (') is used in place of omitted letters, in this case, the "o" of not and the "a" of are.

On topic, come on Fox, let the people who know what they're doing have the rights back. And, stop making Wolverine movies.

 

[The Great JT]

One day. One day we will see The Thing team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy in the movies!

 

[ExileNZ]

Never mind F4, let's do some Planetary - their evil counterparts are so much more interesting.

 

[direkiller]

I can't help but feel that Marvel/Disney will get all their characters back just in time for the bottom to fall out of the MCU. They're upping and upping the number of movies being chucked out, three a year is pushing it and people can get sick of a good thing.

On the other hand, more characters out of the hands Fox is good news.

I think that's why there pusshing more smaller budget movies out.

If it starts to go down hill they will only have one big production in the works, rather then a finished tanking one with another one in the works.

 

[FogHornG36]

I guess you are only aloud to fuck up 2 times before they give up the rights to marvel.

 

[DoctorM]

I have an uncomfortable feeling that part of the deal will involve this being the final seasons of Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter.

To be fair, neither show is doing well, but it sounds like the X-men series are a bit redundant.
AoS is all about building an Inhumans team right now and Carter is a late 40's period show.
Fox will be making a team building X-men series and an early 50's period show?

I think Disney/Marvel may have realized there isn't a lot of money in TV. It makes sense to let someone else do the work.
Look at how much DC doesn't care what happens on TV to their characters (which is why they don't suck). It's all about the theatrical films.

Umm, no. Marvel isn't doing an X-Men TV show because they didn't have the film rights. The only reason they are letting Fox do the TV show is because Marvel is getting something out of it.

I honestly have no idea what you are arguing. You are agreeing with me.

 

[Zontar]

I honestly have no idea what you are arguing. You are agreeing with me.

I think what he means is that Marvel was under no obligation to let Fox do the project due to the fact that the FF and X-men rights Fox has is only for movies, and not for television.

I'd also disagree with your overall assessment that there isn't big money in television. Sure, the rate of return is lower, but say you make one or two million profit per episode due to international distribution, that's 22-44 million profit per season. If it succeeds then multiple that by the 2-4 years it takes for a movie to be made and you have 44-176 million profit in the time-frame of a movie project for a single series. That's where the real money lies, distribution. Marvel and ABC are both owned by Disney, so they make money both from advertising on their channels and from international broadcast licencing. Multiply that by a good dozen series on different channels you can have, and we're talking big money here. Which leads to the question of why FX is getting 2 co-produced Marvel/Fox series set in the X-men universe when Marvel would likely rather have the effort of 2 series be in the MCU (and also 100% in their control, as well as all the revenue on top of that). It's probably why people jumped onto the idea the FF had been given back, it seemed like a realistic deal.

You are right about one thing though, Warner doesn't seem to care about television, which is probably something CW loves due to the fact it gives DC Television free reign to do what they want on their massively profitable series. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see each weekday have a DC live action series on the CW in a few years, and I'm already surprised we haven't seen any made-for-tv movies.

 

[DoctorM]

Of course Marvel was under no obligation to give the rights to Fox. Still, the TV rights have little value to Disney/Marvel.

Sure they could make their own animated series, but live action would have been stupid. Fox would have found it inflammatory and no doubt thrown lawyers at them, any films could run counter to the show and been confusing to the public, it couldn't be part of the MCU, and if it was a hit might prop up the Fox reboot if it turns out to be terrible.

Have you SEEN the ratings of Agents of SHIELD? If it wasn't getting support from corporate, it would have been cancelled long ago.
In an entire season season it isn't making what one Marvel theatrical film makes. In fact it could quite possibly be in the red. It's really only an hour long advertisement for the MCU.

Letting someone else worry about Marvel's TV presence is a great idea. It keeps primetime from being all DC all the time, lets someone else take the financial risk, gets Disney/Marvel FF4, and I would also bet lets Marvel have some input or tie-in to the inevitable X-men universe reboot.

I also wouldn't be surprised to hear about the Inhumans movie being yanked...

 

[faefrost]

Hasn't this rumour been around a few times before now?

It's been floated for ages that there were behind the scenes discussions. It popped up around the same time Fox started to realize what a looming disaster they had with Josh Trank. In spite of what they say openly, I'm giving it strong credence. The key thing that elevates it above rumor is we have now seen official confirmed evidence that Fox is openly working on the other half of this rumor. The Hellfire and Legion TV series. There is no way Fox got the TV rights without giving Marvel something. And there are only 2 things Fox has that Marvel wants. The FF, and a renegotiation of X-Men merchandising deals, similar to what Sony agreed to. Of the two the FF is below worthless to Fox. It cost them millions. Whereas the X-Men merchandising has had a Marvel problem. While Fox gets a substantial cut of the merchandising under the existing deal, Marvel maintains an absolute veto on any and all merchandise deals and products. Which they have been exercising ever since the Fox movie President told them to "fuck off" when they sought to negotiate for the return of the FF cosmic characters for use in Guardians of the Galaxy movies.

So right now Fox wants TV rights to their portable movie franchise. They have another movie franchise that just cost them tens of millions, and a merchandising deal that earns them nothing because they pissed off the partner. Marvel wants the FF back, particularly for the above mentioned Cosmic Characters. Galactose, Silver Surfer, Annihilus, Blastar, Terrax, Psycho Man, Skrulls, etc. all things that also play heavily into Guardians and such. If Fox trades back the worthless cursed property that is the FF they get their TV shows, plus they get enough Marvel goodwill to uncork the X-Men movie merchandising and let them make some profit on the back end.

One other huge thing changed from when this was first rumored. Disney's Bob Iger stepped in to elevate Kevin Feige, and step on Marvel's President. Ex Toymaker Ike Perlmutter. Perlmutter has long been a major piece of the bad blood between Marvel and Fox. Right now I suspect there is an agreement to a deal between Disney and Fox. Disney is likely still working through the internal politics of ramming it down Perlmutters throat while publicly smiling. Gut instinct tells me Perlmutter will not be with Marvel one minute longer than is called for in his contracts with Disney from when they bought the place. He brings them no value and is way out of his league.

 

[faefrost]

I have an uncomfortable feeling that part of the deal will involve this being the final seasons of Agents of SHIELD and Agent Carter.

To be fair, neither show is doing well, but it sounds like the X-men series are a bit redundant.
AoS is all about building an Inhumans team right now and Carter is a late 40's period show.
Fox will be making a team building X-men series and an early 50's period show?

I think Disney/Marvel may have realized there isn't a lot of money in TV. It makes sense to let someone else do the work.
Look at how much DC doesn't care what happens on TV to their characters (which is why they don't suck). It's all about the theatrical films.

Agents of Shiled and Agent Carter will likely get hosed. But not because of this. They currently have an internal politics problem that has nothing to do with Fox, XMen or FF. Disney's Bob Iger just stepped in to avoid losing Kevin Feige because of Perlmutters blundering stupidity. To placate Feige and protect him from Perlmutter he pulled Marvel Studios out of Marvel's control and instead gave it to Disney. Feige now reports to Disney in LA, not Perlmutter in New York. But Marvel TV remains under Perlmutter in New York. They also pretty much severed the Marvel Movies from the influence of the New York writers special advisory group (Brian Michael Bendis and company) which was reportedly making the movie folks tear their hair out on a regular basis. All of this means is AOS and Agent Carter have likely been somewhat cut off from the MCU. As in their production teams are now out of the loop regarding movies and movie happenings. One senses that Disney is looking to let Perlmutter wither and die, and AOS may be a casualty of that.