Does D3 License Each Character Seperately From Marvel?

hodayathink

mega ghost wrote:

I worked in the industry. Marvel / Disney does in fact have policies to shift support from X-Men and Fantastic Four properties to properties they have the film rights to. This is also why the Inhumans have seen so much focus, they've been trying to make them stand-ins for mutants.

There's plenty of real-world examples, from t-shirts (re-released shirts have had the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters Photoshopped out, see here.) to the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom game which seemingly excludes all X-Men and Fantastic Four characters.

We literally only know 6 characters in the new MvC game, nowhere near enough to know for sure whether or not that's actually going to happen (rumors say that it will happen, but said rumors aren't backed up by anything).

That being said, and to paraphrase something that I believe a writer said when a fan asked him this question, if you had a choice, would you promote the thing that you made 70% of the money on, or 100% of the money on. Like it or not, these mobile games basically exist as promotion for the movies and merch, and Marvel corporate has decided that they'd rather promo the stuff they own all the rights to than most of the rights to.

mega ghost

hodayathink wrote:

mega ghost wrote:

I worked in the industry. Marvel / Disney does in fact have policies to shift support from X-Men and Fantastic Four properties to properties they have the film rights to. This is also why the Inhumans have seen so much focus, they've been trying to make them stand-ins for mutants.

There's plenty of real-world examples, from t-shirts (re-released shirts have had the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters Photoshopped out, see here.) to the upcoming Marvel vs. Capcom game which seemingly excludes all X-Men and Fantastic Four characters.

We literally only know 6 characters in the new MvC game, nowhere near enough to know for sure whether or not that's actually going to happen (rumors say that it will happen, but said rumors aren't backed up by anything).

That being said, and to paraphrase something that I believe a writer said when a fan asked him this question, if you had a choice, would you promote the thing that you made 70% of the money on, or 100% of the money on. Like it or not, these mobile games basically exist as promotion for the movies and merch, and Marvel corporate has decided that they'd rather promo the stuff they own all the rights to than most of the rights to.

I agree, which is why I said "seemingly excludes." The Marvel half of Marvel vs. Capcom has always focused on the X-Men, and by and large fighting games don't really mix up their formulas, so the fact that no X-Men characters were even hinted at is enough to make an implication. I wouldn't be surprised if the game releases without them, and then possibly includes them as downloadable / add-on characters in time.

And hey, I don't mind it. While I'd like to still have access to all of my favorite mutants, I'm perfectly happy putting Wolverine on the backburner for a while. Before all of these rights issues came into play, who was this excited about the Avengers? Or Iron Man? Or Captain Marvel? Or a single member of Guardians of the Galaxy? Without the refocusing, I doubt we'd have gotten Kamala Khan (I really hope she's in MvC), the new ongoing Squirrel Girl comics (**** MPQ character, hilarious series) or the Vision series.

Dormammu

Quebbster wrote:

Teskal wrote:

Dormammu wrote:

Pope Belligerent wrote:

Actually, FF has been cancelled several times over the years, as have X-Men, Avengers

When?

The main FF and X-Men series had never been stopped since the sixties.

Only about the last few (~3-4) years I'm not sure what happend.

Between 1970 and 1975 no new X-men stories were published though. The comic was still coming out, but it was all reprints of old stories. Then in 1975 Giant size X-men restarted the franchise.
...Yeah, that was 40 years ago, but still...

Correct. Uncanny X-Men was also bi-monthly at that time. But since their first issues in the early sixties, the Avengers, Fantastic Four, and X-Men have not been cancelled until Marvel recently cancelled FF. They've restarted the numberings several times, but never ceased publishing.

MushroomGenius808

Used to love these posters... until:

2007:


2013, when all the X/F4 Universe disappeared:


And stuff like this:


And this:

broll

CNash wrote:

Movie licensing rights have absolutely no bearing on video game licensing rights.

Mostly true. Yes, it doesn't stop Marvel from licencing the characters to video games at all. However, they can still choose to attempt to devalue those characters/franchises in the hopes that the studios will give up and return the movie rights. That's been my impression of Marvel's strategy.

Nightglider1

Crnch73 wrote:

sorry then, my bad. I always thought it was all due to licensing rights, never was aware the movie rights were sold independently from video games. I must have been trying to make sense to something that made no sense to me

Don't feel too bad, my friend. This sort of thing is difficult for lawyers to figure out, let alone the average Joe.

El Satanno

Not exactly on OP's point, but this article was certainly illuminating.

whycantwesyncpc

By the way from what I've read, Fox actually doesn't own the movie rights to Fantastic 4, but it's actually owned by Constantine Film that has a deal with fox to distribute the movies and the rights have been away from marvel long before the bankruptcy. Last years F4 movie wasn't the first time a movie was made just to hold onto the rights. There was a movie made back in the 90s that never got released that supposedly makes last years movie look like an academy award winner. Never seen it myself though, but there are supposedly bootlegs of it out there.

Pylgrim

El Satanno wrote:

Not exactly on OP's point, but this article was certainly illuminating.

Weird. That article is dated January 2017, but most of the information is outdated and the first comments are from 2014.

Anyway, as other poster mentioned a huge relaunch of the X-Men brand is coming up. At this point, we should just wait and see. If it is not accompanied with any mutants in Marvel games and other merchandises, then we'll have to accept that's the reality of the thing. I myself believe that we will see a bunch of mutants this year in MPQ.

DaveR4470

whycantwesyncpc wrote:

By the way from what I've read, Fox actually doesn't own the movie rights to Fantastic 4, but it's actually owned by Constantine Film that has a deal with fox to distribute the movies and the rights have been away from marvel long before the bankruptcy. Last years F4 movie wasn't the first time a movie was made just to hold onto the rights. There was a movie made back in the 90s that never got released that supposedly makes last years movie look like an academy award winner. Never seen it myself though, but there are supposedly bootlegs of it out there.

Constantine Films (which, for reference, is the German studio that made "Neverending Story") had purchased an option from Marvel that, I believe, would expire at the end of 1992 or a certain period of time after the last film made pursuant to the option (which is not an unusual clause, as the studio wants to be able to make sequels if the film is successful without having to renegotiate rights every single time). Avoiding that deadline was the source of the Corman film you're referring to.

It appears that Constantine (or its successor, Highlight Communications) still owns at least some rights to the FF, as they have co-produced every FF movie, including the last reboot. We also know that Marvel reached some sort of financial agreement with Constantine regarding the Corman film to clear the right for Fox to do the Jessica Alba FF film in the 90s. What that tells me is that Marvel probably brokered a deal with Constantine under which they agreed not to challenge the validity of the Corman film as something that would extend the option (long story short if it could be shown that the Corman film was never intended to be an actual distributed film -- and apparently it wasn't -- then Marvel would have a strong argument that it should be disregarded and the reversion clause should be enforced), and in exchange Constantine agreed to sublicense, or agree to amend the option to permit Marvel to license (in technical terms, to remove exclusivity), the FF rights to Fox. I'm guessing that it's a sublicense, and Fox agreed to include Constantine in any productions to preserve their option and keep it from expiring. I do not have any inside information, though.

My gut feeling, given all the data, is that the Fox deal is a sublicense of the Constantine deal, to which terms were added in order for Marvel to benefit from the proceeds from that sublicense. Which means that the reversion clause is probably still out there, and there's a clock ticking on them. I'd guess that the reversion is probably ten years from the previous exploitation, as the Alba FF film came about 10 years after the Corman film, and the reboot came about 10 years after the Alba FF films. If the reversion was triggered, Fox would lose their FF rights as well, as Constantine would no longer have any rights to sublicense.

carrion_pigeons

I wonder how much of a difference it would make if Marvel actually started campaigning against the X-Men movie series in their comics. Like, putting an actual "ad" page in their comics asking readers not to go see whichever Fox movie is current. Would it do much?

The X-Men movies have been huge successes, but if comic readers boycotted them, they might not be, and Marvel could get the leverage they need without actively sabotaging their own IPs.

DaveR4470

I don't know why there's all this perception that Marvel is actively harming the X-Men to spite Fox. They absolutely want to spite Fox, that's true. But overemphasizing the Inhumans is not the same as actively campaigning against the X-Men. Because Marvel makes money from the X-Men movies. They would make a lot more if they controlled the rights, but moving against a revenue stream is not something corporations are in the business of doing.

What Marvel is doing is basically saying to Fox "we're not doing a single bit of promotion or outreach with respect to the X-Men on behalf of your movies. It's up to you -- and your money -- to promote them now." And then they're more or less converting the Inhumans into the X-Men. That makes it an adversarial partnership, unlike the relatively friendly one they had/have with Sony and Spider-man. But it's still something from which they profit. And they profit even more from it now, as they're not expending resources on promoting Fox's movies. Compare that to the MCU and MTU properties, where each one has had at least one new tie-in comic book, and tie-ins via mobile gaming. Marvel could certainly do the same for Fox. They will not.

If you're curious, I think this is largely a personality thing. Ike Perlmutter has some bad blood with News Corp/Fox going all the way back to the bankruptcy, and I think that's colored the relationship. (He's got no similar beefs with Sony, and that relationship has been fine.)

I guarantee that nobody at DisneyMarvel expects to get the X-Men film rights back. They're trying to make something equivalently successful. And they'll do a lot to spite Fox, but that doesn't include cutting off their nose to spite their face. In a worst case scenario, they make massive coin from the Inhumans AND they have a virtually cost-free revenue stream from the Fox deal. In a best case scenario, Fox gives up and sells them back the X-Men rights, and X-Men vs. Inhumans makes $42b in box office.

Editorial postscript: I think they're absolutely trying to harm the Fantastic Four, on the other hand, in order to get the reverted rights. That, however, is probably because they've been poorly served by that licensing deal, which has unquestionably harmed the underlying FF IP.

Pope Belligerent

DaveR4470 wrote:

Editorial postscript: I think they're absolutely trying to harm the Fantastic Four, on the other hand, in order to get the reverted rights. That, however, is probably because they've been poorly served by that licensing deal, which has unquestionably harmed the underlying FF IP.

Also, the FF movies have all been objectively terrible, which hurts the brand and hurts Marvel. It makes sense for them to try to get the rights back.

Dragon_Nexus

DaveR4470 wrote:

I'd guess that the reversion is probably ten years from the previous exploitation, as the Alba FF film came about 10 years after the Corman film, and the reboot came about 10 years after the Alba FF films. If the reversion was triggered, Fox would lose their FF rights as well, as Constantine would no longer have any rights to sublicense.

I'm not a lawyer by any stretch but I believe the current copyright law states that a purchases property is yours as long as you're making films using it. But if you go 10 years without utilising the property, it reverts back to its original rights holders. That's what Amazing Spider Man was as well, Sony saying "Oh ****, 10 years is almost up, we need to make something." Same deal with X-Men First Class, that was a quickly made movie done fairly cheap because it had been a long time since they'd made a full on X-Men film.

The law was changed to combat studios buying rights just so other studios couldn't make something using that property and then holding that property indefinitely.

An example is that Fox owns the distribution rights to the theatrical versions of Star Wars episodes 1-3 and 5 and 6 until May of 2020. But they own the distribution rights to Episode 4 forever because that came out before the law was changed.

Phumade

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

I'm not a lawyer by any stretch but I believe the current copyright law states that a purchases property is yours as long as you're making films using it. But if you go 10 years without utilising the property, it reverts back to its original rights holders.

Its not really a copyright issue. Its more of contract's question. Parties are generally able to assigns away rights on any terms they so choose.

What I think you may referring to is the expiration of a copyright and its movement into the public domain. Which is a very real concern for Disney. I haven't looked at the various dates, but I can assure your that Mickey Mouse will move into the public domain long before Superman and the Xmen do.

patrice789

This is all confusing considering Marvel Heroes can introduce Beast & Jubilee this weekend and Contest of Champions can introduce Cable last month (Phoenix a couple of months prior), yet every other game is banned from introducing them, and from my understanding, those 2 are arguably Marvel's biggest games atm

hodayathink

Phumade wrote:

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

I'm not a lawyer by any stretch but I believe the current copyright law states that a purchases property is yours as long as you're making films using it. But if you go 10 years without utilising the property, it reverts back to its original rights holders.

Its not really a copyright issue. Its more of contract's question. Parties are generally able to assigns away rights on any terms they so choose.

What I think you may referring to is the expiration of a copyright and its movement into the public domain. Which is a very real concern for Disney. I haven't looked at the various dates, but I can assure your that Mickey Mouse will move into the public domain long before Superman and the Xmen do.

Actually, it may be a while before that happens seeing as every time that he's about to, Disney attempts to change things so that copyright lasts longer.

Phumade

hodayathink wrote:

Phumade wrote:

Dragon_Nexus wrote:

I'm not a lawyer by any stretch but I believe the current copyright law states that a purchases property is yours as long as you're making films using it. But if you go 10 years without utilising the property, it reverts back to its original rights holders.

Its not really a copyright issue. Its more of contract's question. Parties are generally able to assigns away rights on any terms they so choose.

What I think you may referring to is the expiration of a copyright and its movement into the public domain. Which is a very real concern for Disney. I haven't looked at the various dates, but I can assure your that Mickey Mouse will move into the public domain long before Superman and the Xmen do.

Actually, it may be a while before that happens seeing as every time that he's about to, Disney attempts to change things so that copyright lasts longer.

It will be an interesting issue to watch. The happy birthday recently passed into the public domain and Mickey will be the next threshold case. I just check wikipedia, and mickey will pass into the public domain in 2023, so I fully expect that disney will try to do something during this presidential cycle.

Dormammu

7 years. The contract states that if 7 years go by without an active film in development, the film rights will revert back to Marvel.

This recently happened with Daredevil.

whycantwesyncpc

Pope Belligerent wrote:

DaveR4470 wrote:

Editorial postscript: I think they're absolutely trying to harm the Fantastic Four, on the other hand, in order to get the reverted rights. That, however, is probably because they've been poorly served by that licensing deal, which has unquestionably harmed the underlying FF IP.

Also, the FF movies have all been objectively terrible, which hurts the brand and hurts Marvel. It makes sense for them to try to get the rights back.

There have been 4 FF four movies made and three of them actually released. 2 of the 4 were only made to hold on to the rights. Not the best way to do things if you want quality.