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Marvel Studios to Produce Its Own Movies

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-would-make-a-great-tony-stark dept.

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."

1 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Snakes in the garden by rsanta74 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    > 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.