Evil plan to restore Fox and Sony film rights back to Marvel

I look at some of the things Fox and Sony have done with the Marvel characters they have live action film rights to and it makes frustrated. By the time they are done with the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man properties no one will want to see those characters in anything ever again. So this is my plan for the Disney lawyers to consider. Right now Jack Kirby's family is suing for the ownership of a good chunk of the Marvel Universe, I believe the lawsuit also involved the rights that Fox and Sony have as well. They claim its owed to them because Jack Kirby contributed so much to Marvel. So my proposal is, what if Disney and Marvel make the Kirby family a deal and help them when their case. In exchange, the Kirby family could accept a monster sized settlement from Disney to hand all of the rights back to Marvel.
Would this remotely work? Could this bring all the characters back to the Marvel fold and make a Secret Wars movie a reality rather than a dream.

A few things.

1. Jack Kirby’s family is looking to do the same thing Jerry Siegel’s family did with “Superman” and regain the rights to 45 of their father’s creations. For now X-Men, Fantastic Four, and Hulk are all safe due to a 56-year rule under copyright law, but all the other characters are going to be “fair game”.

2. Stan Lee, co-creator, is also entitled to the characters as well, Kirby has admitted to creating the characters in a team. Which means that they couldn't take away anything without Lee's agreement (remember both Superman families agree to yank it) and Lee has been in support of Marvel recently.

3. John Turitzin, Marvel's lawyer issued this statement back in 2009: “The notices filed by the heirs are an attempt to rewrite the history of Kirby’s relationship with Marvel. Everything about Kirby’s relationship with Marvel shows that his contributions were works made for hire” - this means they belong to whom they are contracted ie: Marvel.

4. The work for hire case is already tied up in the courts from the recording industry, this won't be finished anytime soon. Disney is showing no real need to settle because the burden of proof is on Team Kirby whereas in the DC case DC/WB has publically admitted that parts of Superman were still owned by the family.

5. Disney/Marvel signed over the deals to 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal and Sony a while back and renewed at least the Fox and Sony ones which means that to remove the characters wouldn't necessary take them away from those companies just away from Marvel. Since Kirby's family is looking for money, they'll happily take Marvel's cut for those and nothing will change. This isn't about intellectual property its about cash, don't believe the hype.

6. Spider-Man was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko which means Sony isn't really involved anyway...the copyright law is holding the X-Men and the Fantastic Four away from this lawsuit, Daredevil was created by Stan Lee and artist Bill Everett, so what else would 20th Century Fox have to worry about anyway?

Yeah, you make total sense. My understanding about the deals Marvel has with Fox and Sony is that as long as they keep using the properties they can hold on to them. They have a certain amount of time to get something in production and if they don't they lose the property. What sucks is if they are nearing a deadline they can put together something super crappy, play it on one screen in Tulsa and buy themselves some time. So because they have to keep meeting this deadline, they can ramrod things into the production process. They then create a glut of sub-par cash grab movies and eventually ruin these characters from anyone ever wanting to see them again. By the time Marvel gets them back, if they ever do, the characters names are sullied and they'd probably have to sit on them for three decades.
One of my worries, is Fox has already talking reboot on Fantastic Four and Daredevil so do will have five reboots of these things in the next decade to the point audiences lose interest in the actors constantly being replaced and the previous story lines thrown out for the next flavor of the month.
I guess what sucks about it is its the fans that lose out in the end. I just can't for the life of me figure out a way around it. I just can't imagine any amount of settlement money would convince Fox and Sony to loosen their grips on these characters.

Oscar_the_Gungan said:

Yeah, you make total sense. My understanding about the deals Marvel has with Fox and Sony is that as long as they keep using the properties they can hold on to them. They have a certain amount of time to get something in production and if they don't they lose the property. What sucks is if they are nearing a deadline they can put together something super crappy, play it on one screen in Tulsa and buy themselves some time.

Click to expand...

Your understanding isn't complete. Fox and Sony have signed contracts with a year date. Spider-Man was resigned in 2008 I believe and they had it since 2000. I believe it was for another eight years as well. They can do whatever they want or don't want with the property in that span on film, it doesn't extend past that. At the end Marvel can extend or remove. I'm not sure on the Fox rights.

The whole use the property thing is DC/WB's rights with Superman but in their contract it lists films specifically so if they don't hit a new Superman film by 2013 they'd lose it.

I don't know if this article is accurate but this where I got my understanding of the situation.

https://www.iesb.net/index.php?opti...fox-marvel-franchises&catid=41:news&Itemid=71

That is a different case. That is where Disney is trying to find a way to sneak the character usage without going through them. They own the film rights and the media rights to the character. Marvel's Mutant X issue is different.

Fox stated it had exclusive rights from Marvel to develop the X-Men property, and anything similar was an infringement. Fox claimed that Mutant X was too similar to X-Men, and Mutant X was being advertised as an "X-Men replacement."

Marvel counter-sued Fox, saying that the two were dissimilar and asking the courts to allow Mutant X production to go forward. Production was allowed, as long as X-Men material was not used in the promotion of Mutant X.

They ended up settling but the thing is that Fox would have to go through Marvel to do TV, it isn't signed but vice versa is also true that Marvel couldn't just go around them because they have also signed Media rights which means that are holders as long as the contract is viable. That is completely different than what is going on with Superman.

One thing that confused me about all this is, say with an Avengers movie, is Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch off limits? Even though they appear in way more Avengers stories than X-men, it still sounds like because their dad is Magneto, Marvel Studios can't use them, depending on what the contract reads. Or if Marvel Studios, wanted to make an Avengers film with Kang as the villain, they couldn't because one of his ancestors is Doctor Doom or the Skrulls because they first showed up in the Fantastic Four. It seems like in some circumstances there would be quite a few gray areas in what Marvel Studios, Sony and Fox are allowed to do especially when no one Marvel property is an island in and of themselves. I guess some of those issues make it frustrating. It would seem like it would be in their best interests to share some elements in that it would help cross promote each others films. It would be nice to be able to shoehorn some things as being part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and still honor previous agreements at the same time.

Doctor Doom is owned by 20th Century Fox so Marvel Studios cannot use him.

Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were not included in the original Fox licensing and according to Marvel Studios no other mutants would be further optioned so as far as we know both of them are fair game. The only thing is that the wouldn't even be able to mention Magneto because he is owned by Fox.

Maybe you two should get a room. Lamest thread.. ever.