Chapter 253 Marvel Current Situation
Chapter 253 Marvel Current Situation
The sale of Marvel character copyrights is just one of the hardships the company has suffered in the past.
When it came to the mid-to-late 1990s, with the rise of new types of media such as the Internet and video games, the comics industry was greatly impacted. A large number of comics stores were closed, and Marvel Comics' stock price continued to fall.
In 1996, Marvel Comics filed for bankruptcy, and in order to pay off debts and save the company, they once again sold some of the character copyrights.
It fell into decline for nearly 10 years until two years ago, when Marvel decided to start making its own movies, risking its life and property, using famous characters such as Thor and Captain America as collateral, and finally raised funds from Merrill Lynch on Wall Street.
With this funding, Marvel Studios finally made a successful comeback with "Iron Man" as its first independent production project.
The recently released "Iron Man" is now approaching $6 million at the global box office. The success of Marvel Studios is obvious, and the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" has also had a good start, and is about to usher in a glorious decade of the movie universe.
Of course, this is what Wang Hao, a time traveler with future memories, thinks of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this moment.
In the eyes of other Hollywood film companies, the success of "Iron Man" does not mean that the Marvel Cinematic Universe will necessarily go smoothly.
After all, although the box office of "Iron Man" is 6 million US dollars, its cost is as high as more than 1 million. In addition, Marvel does not have its own distribution channels and it is still in debt. A successful "Iron Man" cannot improve Marvel's current poor situation.
Therefore, it is still unknown whether Marvel has the ability to continue to develop subsequent projects. Its current situation is the same as that after the release of "The Call" in the [Galaxy Cinematic Universe].
Although good results were achieved, more Hollywood companies are still waiting and watching.
However, there are one or two exceptions among these companies that are waiting and watching.
Perhaps it was because of the influence of Wang Hao's butterfly wings, or perhaps it was because of the success of the "Galaxy Cinematic Universe" project, compared with other Hollywood film and television companies, Sony Pictures still pays more attention to Marvel.
At least Wang Hao dared to guarantee that Sony Pictures had definitely contacted Marvel privately, otherwise the information he asked Sony to collect would not be transmitted so late.
According to his guess, Sony should have made preparations for both scenarios.
On the one hand, he wants to stabilize his [Spider-Man Cinematic Universe], and on the other hand, he wants to contact Marvel to see if he can acquire or invest in Marvel, and then integrate Spider-Man into that [Marvel Cinematic Universe].
In Wang Hao's opinion, this is entirely possible.
After all, Spider-Man itself is a part of Marvel and can be perfectly integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And compared to the Spider-Man Cinematic Universe, the breadth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to be a little larger.
However, judging by the fact that Sony Pictures sent him another message, the communication with Marvel doesn’t seem to be going so smoothly.
Come to think of it, Wang Hao remembered that in his previous life, Marvel was acquired by Disney in 2009 for a whopping US$42.4 billion.
Such a huge acquisition amount is indeed difficult for Sony Group, which has been suffering from losses for years and its business is shrinking.
Moreover, they already have Spider-Man. Instead of spending billions to acquire Marvel, whose future is uncertain, it would be cheaper and more secure to develop the Spider-Man Cinematic Universe based on Spider-Man.
And even if Sony Pictures is really bold enough to take this gamble, it remains to be seen whether Marvel will be willing to be acquired by Sony Group.
Even if they are looking for a partner, they are looking for someone who can provide assistance. In the film industry, Disney is much stronger than Sony. What's more, Sony is a Japanese company. Under the circumstances where the conditions are not advantageous, it is even less likely that those white executives of Marvel will give priority to him.
Of course, this is also good news for Wang Hao.
Why is he willing to help Sony Pictures create the "Spider-Man Cinematic Universe"? It's just to hold Marvel back.
If Sony acquires Marvel, then he and his [Galaxy Cinematic Universe] will not be that important to Sony Pictures.
And his plan to enter Hollywood and expand the influence of the Galaxy Cinematic Universe overseas is bound to encounter twists and turns.
That's fine now.
No! Maybe it can be better!
Wang Hao looked at the documents in his hand. According to the information collected by Sony Pictures, Marvel still has the copyrights of many heroic characters scattered around.
Most of the characters they have now are second-tier characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.
Others, like the Hulk, were sold to Universal in 1990, and later Marvel Studios regained the rights to the Hulk, but Universal still owns its distribution rights and the independent copyright of She-Hulk.
This is also the main reason why the Hulk has appeared countless times in the MCU series of movies but has never had a solo movie.
In addition, the copyright of Namor is now also in the hands of Universal, but it seems that Universal has no intention of developing him. It is estimated that the copyright will be taken back by Marvel in the end.
As for the others, when Hollywood's Lionsgate acquired Artisan Entertainment in 2003, it inherited the copyrights of Marvel characters including Captain America, Black Panther, Black Widow, Deadpool, Iron Fist, Ant-Man, Punisher, Man-Thing, Morbius the Vampire, Longshot, etc.
However, in 2004, after Lionsgate finished filming "The Punisher", it temporarily shelved the development plans for these Marvel characters due to poor response.
Then, characters like Captain America, Black Panther, Black Widow, and Ant-Man, who had not had their movies made for a long time, were taken back by Marvel in accordance with legal terms.
The Marvel character copyrights currently held by Lionsgate mainly include less famous characters such as Iron Fist, Punisher, Man-Thing, Vampire Morbius and Longshot.
Oh, by the way, another equally unknown Blade is in the hands of New Line Cinema.
Iron Man was originally in the hands of his family, but unfortunately they did not take this character seriously, so the copyright of Iron Man was taken back by Marvel in 2006.
Now seeing the popularity of "Iron Man", this company must be regretting it very much.
However, the copyrights of these characters are nothing. Nowadays in Hollywood, there are only two main companies that truly own the copyrights of Marvel characters.
One is 20th Century Fox, and the other is Wang Hao’s partner Sony Pictures.
(End of this chapter)