Slashdot Mirror
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."
How about Marvel do what's right for a change and pay the creators their fair dues.
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
Infiltrated dot Net
And we all know how well that worked with Capcom and the Street Fighter II movie.
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.
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
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...
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Why not just make better licensing deals?
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
I mean certified accounting shows both spider man I & II barely broke even. /wag
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
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!
You can't take the sky from me...
Im not sure if they were the characters under Marvel, but I`m waiting a movie based on a cartoon series Biker Mice from Mars .
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).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
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,...
this is a dupe of an article here 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.
Please, please, please, let's not forget Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., starring David Hasselhoff as Nick Fury. Possibly the worst and most unintentionally funny movie ever made.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
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.
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?
Actually, no. But imagine how much better they'll be now with Wolverine and Captain America teamup!
Which will be 100x BETTER when Wolverine joins the team!
Mostly featuring Wolverine!
http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=070407
How many publishing companies of other more serious works would LIKE to be so lucky?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Let's not forget David Hasselhoff's turn as Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. [1998]
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?).
I'll give you that, but at the same time, I actually preferred the totaly plotless 1989 version of The Punisher to the 2004 version.
Here's the guts of the article detailing the incredible risk they are taking:
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
Basically because of Hollywood Accounting.
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.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Wow, this looks the AWESOXR too: Dr. Strange. Wong - cause comic books needed more homo-erotic undertones.
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
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.
That movie was God awful and a tarnish to my fine name.
You're 100% right, though I'd give them some chances for having now available much better and cheap technology for effects. Of course acting and plot are much more important than sfx, but if you are forced to throw lots of money in sfx probably the budget for decent actors and writers will shrink.
Plus there wasn't a lot of unnecessary dialog coming from Dolph Lundgren. What about "vigilante crime fighter" needs a plot?
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.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
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?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Okay. So how did they lose the rights to Superman in the first place?
Neal: Well they just signed a piece of paper.
Sam: That's all it took? Well why would DC Comics screw them out of that?
Neal: Well DC didn't screw them. There was no entity such as DC Comics at the time. There was an accountant who was one of three partners who ran a printing company who was printing comic books as a way to keep their presses moving and that was all they were really interested in doing. Of course it became a pain in the ass and they had to pay attention to it and they did pay attention to it and Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who had been working for them, brought into them this comic idea that they had been trying to sell to the syndicated strips for several years and they thought that they were never going to sell it, so why not sell it to the publisher that was publishing their detective stories and their cowboy stories? And so the publisher gave them a piece of paper to sign and said, "We'll buy it, but everything we publish, we own so you have to sign this piece of paper. I don't think it was even a fully typed out piece of paper. I think it was about three quarters of a page and they signed away their rights just like that.
Sam: Now were you able to help better their quality of life? Did they get enough money?
Neal: They got enough money to live like human beings. Well it doesn't sound like a lot these days but they got $25,000 a year. But it escalated and it was up from nothing. But it was more than that. They got their names back on the strip and they also got setted. What you call "setted" is when somebody goes, "Oh, the creators of Superman are here tonight during this benefit performance of the Superman movie. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Jerry and Joe will you take a bow?" And they were treated well, and treated well at conventions because they finally came out of their hole. They had their way paid. They earned what was at that time a living wage so they could fly places and do things. Joe got married for the first time in his life. Jerry got to live a reasonable life. He put his daughter through school. And their income went up. They had medical insurance and they had lots of benefits you have at a bigger corporation. For the first time in their lives they lived a reasonable life.
Sam: So they did okay.
Neal: They did okay at the end of their lives. At the end! At the end after they had been fucked. I don't like to use the word 'fuck' so much but when it comes to this story the word just comes to my mouth.
You can't take the sky from me...
Edward Norton: cum laude graduate of the Tom Cruise matchbook cover school of tasteless overacting. It sounds like Marvel is already getting off to a great start.
TROD THE MOLE DOWN!!!
+5, Truth
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
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.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You can't take the sky from me...
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.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
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.
I'm camping out awaiting Elektra 2...see you guys later!
Well at least they won't let Roger Corman do any more Marvel flicks... The Fantastic Four (1994)
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
And is why every previous independent Marvel movie production was worse than chewing on rusty nails. Then spitting out the nails and drinking bleach. Then putting the rusty nails back in your mouth because you just couldn't help yourself. Then... ok I stop now.
(except ORIGINAL punisher, seeing louis gosset jr. crying on camera as his career slips down the toilet)
Only 62 million? For how much work? Talk about wanting the entire pie.
yes, but the great thing about having them all under 1 roof is doing things like the avengers and excallibur and x-factor which pull characters/actors from other people that are holding the film rights- you can still pull hollywood people to work for you.
and so far as "The Roger Corman version of Fantastic Four", I thought that the new one (though I haven't seen the silver surfer one) was as bad as the corman version, and I thought that the incredible hulk tv show blew the movie out of the water- and daredevil was cooler in the I. hulk tv show as well.
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.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
But wow, this turned into GeekTown super fast. Probably faster than a speeding bullet.
This is pointed at the parent's other repliers, btw, not the parent.
No, I am not a comic book guy, but talking about Sandman's good/evil ratio, when Venom showed up, and if the first bad guy was actually the Goblin dude? Yikes. Or even that whole wrist/equipment web shooter thing? Didn't that go away like 5 years ago? Double yikes. Have I missed the convo where we argue about Scooby Doo's breed, yet?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Remember the '70s Cap America movies? This is all the reasons why Marvel should tread lightly. Twenty-five years later, they started making good films again.
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.