The Amazing Spiderman is due out in June, and once again, this topped my list of ‘awesome’, as I’m a HUGE spider man fangirl. The Lizard is the bad guy, and I had an entire theory about how the lizard was going to tie in to the whole super soldier serum that was the basis of plot for The Incredible Hulk and Captain America. And then I had my hopes and dreams crushed by Copyright law.
And it’s really simple. To summarise:
Marvel is owned by Disney. Disney are there for owns all the Marvel characters, and any films that were made by Marvel Studios. They are responsible for Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America, and The Avengers.
However this is relatively new. Before then, Marvel had dealing’s with lots of companies to make the movies. X-Men/Mutants, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and Elektra are owned by 20th Centaury Fox. (I tell you I am a brown coat, and if you know what that is, you’ll know how I feel about Fox)
Blade is owned by New Line Cinema (which means he’s now owned by Warner Brothers)
Ghost Rider is at Columbia.
Punisher with Lionsgate.
The Hulk was with Universal but when The Hulk film FAILED they sold it back to Marvel. Thank God for small miracles.
When these companies got the rights to those characters, they entered in to a contract saying they were the only people that were aloud to make movies about those characters. If they don’t use those characters for a set amount of time the characters return to Marvel. This means if Fox don’t keep making movies about the X-men, or The Fantastic Four, Marvel gets them back. If Sony Pictures don’t keep making Spiderman films Marvel gets them back. Same for all of them.
And seriously: when the Avengers exploded all over cinema’s everywhere, why would ANYONE want to stop making films that people, myself included, will continue to pay to see? Which means Wolverine, and Spiderman will not be making an appearance in The Avengers universe. Sadness.
Explained better here: The Big Picture : Wrongs & Rights
I can only assume that the movie rights do not extend over television rights.
~Captain Dibbzy