Future Spider-Man Movies in Doubt?

[Draddog]

From Comic Book Resources - http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/newsitem.cgi?id=2134

As expected, yesterday Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Judge Alexander Williams III lifted the seal on the court documents regarding the Spider-Man licensing case that Marvel has brought against Sony. Marvel issued the following press release in the matter:

A Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Monday denied a motion brought by Sony Pictures Entertainment to seal proceedings in a lawsuit brought by Marvel Characters, Inc., a subsidiary of Marvel Enterprises, Inc. concerning Marvel's most popular hero, Spider-Man. Judge Alexander Williams III ruled Monday afternoon that all aspects of Marvel's lawsuit will henceforth be entirely open to the press and to the public.

On February 25, 2003, Marvel filed, temporarily under seal, a twelve-count complaint against Sony. The lawsuit seeks more than $50 million in damages as well as rescission of the License Agreement between Marvel and Sony and an injunction against any further film or television production by Sony of Spider-Man beyond the current sequel, "Spider-Man 2," which is already in production. Marvel has asked to try its case to a jury.

The suit accuses Sony of fraud and of deliberately misleading Marvel by failing to disclose its intent to misappropriate Spider-Man for itself to the exclusion of Marvel. Marvel claims that Sony falsely represented that it offered Marvel unique and unparalleled merchandising opportunities -- unlike any other potential partner, but Sony never delivered on its false promises. The suit also charges Sony with material breaches of the parties' License Agreement and merchandising joint venture, and of wrongfully withholding millions of dollars it owed to Marvel, by using "Hollywood accounting" practices and refusing to provide critical financial information owed to Marvel.

"Sony's allegations that this dispute arose out of Marvel's allegedly improper accounting is completely false," Carole Handler, one of Marvel's attorneys, stated. "As Marvel's Complaint makes clear, Marvel is owed millions of dollars by Sony, and the reason for this lawsuit is Sony's appropriation of the Spider-Man character for itself. Marvel created the popularity that ensured Sony's box office success and that Marvel Studios contributed to that success."

Marvel also alleges that Sony engaged in restraints of trade to protect the interests of affiliates such as Sony Electronics and Sony Interactive. The suit also charges that Sony ignored contractual arrangements that protected Marvels' ongoing licensing by failing to market movie merchandise only during limited "windows" and by ignoring Marvel's "tie-breaker" rights when disagreements arose over merchandise licenses.

"We allege that Sony has hijacked Spider-Man to promote and merchandise other less popular characters," stated Ms. Handler. "Spider-Man is one of the brightest stars in the Marvel universe. Disregard of Marvel's intellectual property rights by a major studio cannot be condoned."

If the License Agreement between Sony and Marvel is cancelled, Sony will lose the right to make movies based on Spider-Man after "Spider-Man 2." More important, Sony's opportunity to build a long-running film franchise for itself comparable to the James Bond films (Sony's unsuccessful attempt to acquire that franchise for itself from MGM was defeated in federal court in 1998) will be in jeopardy. The first "Spider-Man" grossed $821 million in worldwide box office receipts and, including its DVD sales, generated more than $1.3 billion in revenue.

Judge Williams deferred any ruling on Sony's motion to refer the dispute to a private judge within the auspices of the court system until more information was placed before the Court.

The right to make a movie based on the popular Spider-Man character and stories had been hotly contested in court for years before Sony and Marvel executed a License Agreement in 1999 giving Sony the motion picture and television rights to the character.

In the 1990's, six different studios went to court to claim those rights for themselves. One of those studios was Sony. In January, 1999, another Superior Court Judge, Aurelio Munoz, determined that the motion picture and television rights belonged to Marvel.

Marvel's legal representation in this case is led by Carole E. Handler and Pierce O'Donnell, O'Donnell & Shaeffer LLP, Los Angeles, California.

[metzgarob]

CRAZY-NESS!!!:p

[bjmc1975]

What will happen is one of three things:

1. Marvel will get the license back and shop it to another studio, possibly Sony again. I think this is the least likely.

2. Sony and Marvel will come to some sort of settlement. This sort of thing tends to work like this; essentially, the suit is probably just leverage in negotiations. This is by far the most likely.

3. Sony will get annoyed and buy Marvel. This might happen especially if the case starts to go badly, or if X-Men 2 and the Hulk do better than expected. Inevitably, some studio is going to buy Marvel someday; it's just a question of when.

[Random]

can't they all just get along? so we can enjoy more geeky movies?

[urlmaker]

The major worry here is that other movie studios as well as Sony get skitish about doing a Marvel production because of the potential hassle it can cause them in court. There goes our Avengers movie...

[Alonso99]

AOL Time Warner buys Marvel and fuses it with DC.
MUWAHAHAHAHHAAHA

[mysterio_lives]

$1.3 billion in revenue....yeah they wont make anymore:rolleyes:

anyone who is foolish enough to believe that they wont continue to make more spiderman movies after SM2 is retarded. whatever problems arise will be ironed out as long as there is sooo much $ at stake. again, thanks for the info but anyone who buys into it is retarded.:confused:

[lavinah]

Actually, Sony buying Marvel is probably the most likely to happen. Sony has a habit of buying companies that they're annoyed by - or, crushing them like grape. Either's entirely possible; I just hope Sony finishes off Microsoft first.

-lavinah

[Meepo]

Interesting.

Isn't there a rule about using the word "retarded" mosre than once in the same post, mysterio_lives?

[DS-00-0, FSD]

Originally posted by Meepo
Interesting.

Isn't there a rule about using the word "retarded" mosre than once in the same post, mysterio_lives?

Give him a break. I mean, his sig pretty much says it all. ;)

[skinnykid71]

Alonso99,
when marvel was in bankruptcy i was secretly hoping aol/tw would buy them out and then reboot both universes together. kinda like an ultimate marvel & dc. just imagine capt america leading the JSA against nazi germany.

[phantom1592]

Hey eventually EVERYONE will get to own marvel. i'm just waiting for my shot :)

[Alonso99]

Hey Skinny thats a hell of an idea. And whoever said SOny finishing off Microsoft??? what are you smoking dude, Bill Gates has sony giving him head

[evilspider]

>>Hey eventually EVERYONE will get to own marvel. i'm just waiting for my shot <<

HAHAHHAHAHAHA GOOD ONE!!!

Since you called it, I want them when your done...

[skinnykid71]

Alonso99,

yeah. i thought it would be cool, and there would be many benefits to it. like the hulk vs. superman vs. thor question. the only thing is that so many characters in one universe are rip off's of guys in the other universe. like challengers of the unknown and the FF. and if the JLA is the best of the best, which avengers would be there?

i have a boring job, so i was trying to work out how everything would work out. in my mind, the wildstorm Universe would get absorbed too, and the JSA would startout as wesley dodds, jenny sparks, steve rodgers and alan scott.

[skeevo666]

Frikkin Lawyers . . .

At least Spidey 2 will be made. Spaeking of which, IMDB has got some cool preview photos of stunt work on "S2" (you can see the wires an' all) but it might be a spoiler to see as Spidey's giving a lift to someone you wouldn't expect . . :)

[Zekeup32]

I would hate to see a Marvel/DC crossover. It would be cool for a while but after that I think it would get sickining. I dont like alot of the characters in DC, and I wouldent like to see one of them pop up in every X-men, Spider-man, Hulk comic I read. I just feel it would get frustrating.

I know alot of people who feel the same way but with DC being thier favorite and not Marvel. So it definatly works both ways.

On the Spider-Man movie note, I would really hate to see Spider-Man fall down the same shoot that Batman did, great first movie, second one was ok, and after the third don't even waste your money. Hopefully Marvel gets their differences worked out with Sony so we can continue to enjoy our great comics come to life movies.

[LuckyJ]

If it were to go my way, I'd have Marvel break it off completely with Sony and sell Spider-Man rights to Fox. Then Fox would have X-Men, Daredevil, FF, and Spider-Man.

As it stands now, Daredevil and Spider-Man are owned by competing studios so we'll never see the team-up that is so frequent in the books.

We also could see Spiderman with the Fantastic Four at some point.

I've been very pleased with how Fox has handled its comic movies so far. Spiderman is, by far, better than DD and X-men, but with X2 coming out in a few weeks, Fox might be raising the bar a bit. I would hate to see them slaughter Spider-Man.

[skinnykid71]

Zekeup32,

the way i saw it, if it happened (which it won't) they would keep two universes. kinda like ultimate marvel and regular marvel. or dc and elseworlds. so you could have your mix or not.

[phantom1592]

<quote><B>I've been very pleased with how Fox has handled its comic movies so far. Spiderman is, by far, better than DD and X-men, but with X2 coming out in a few weeks, Fox might be raising the bar a bit. I would hate to see them slaughter Spider-Man.</B></quote>


does it really matter WHICH studio gets the rights? I like the idea of a Daredevil/spiderman or Definetly a Daredevil/punisher movie. but to say that sony did a great job on spiderman while Fox slipped on X-men? the Director of Spiderman was a HUGE fan who demanded the kind of perfection that a fan would while the X-director didn't know much about them at the begining and just wrote a story.

I think the credit/blame should go to the directors and not the Distribution companies

[RavenProject]

There have been persistent rumors for years now that Sony would purchase Marvel. Most recently, it was reported that there were certain forces inside of Sony which remained skittish about the deal. This lawsuit was then manufactured to get them off the fence.

-J

[gaidin]

X-men are the team of the geeks. Spider man has much more wide apeal to non geeks.

Also the addition of Kirsten Dunst opened that movie to a younger female crowd that you would not have caught at X-Men. This leads to a chance for geeks to take their non dork wives, girlfriends and others to see Spider man where as X-man was a guys night out kind of thing.

Daredevil ran into the opposite problem. Too much mass appeal to the ladies with Affleck and Farrell and that turned off the geeks who didn't want affleck (but went to see Gardner anyways :).

Also daredevil doesn't quite have that appeal that Spiderman does to the non comic fans.

So there you have the reasoning behind why Spiderman did better than any other comic movie in history :)

Gaidin

[Thunderbolts]

Score another one for the bad guys (Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas).

[Shogun2727]

Thanks to your sig, I bought Thunderbolts #76, I kinda liked it. Never was a 'Bolts reader before, though.

[LuckyJ]

The studio's support of a film and its interest in the film is oftentimes reflected by the greenlit budget.

Sony - $140 million for Spiderman

Fox - $75 for X-men, $65 (ended up costing 70) for Daredevil, and a hard-fought $100 million for X2 (Brian Singer had to beg for the budget raise).

Universal has also dished out $120 million for The Hulk.

So, yeah, Fox has been especially stingy with their comic bookers (Daredevil is a little more understandable since he's not as popular as Spider-man.) However, I expect a startlingly big budget for FF.

To put these costs into perspective for non movie-buffs:
Fellowship of the Ring: $109 million
Two Towers: $94 million
Matrix: $63 million
Reloaded: $127 million (more than double the budget of the original)
SW: Episode II: $120 million

The Matrix barely made more than X-men and yet their budget was increased by $64 million for the sequal. X-men's budget was increased by only $25 million even AFTER the success of Spider-Man and the ever-increasing built-in fan base. Doesn't make sense to me.

Bryan Singer practically begged for more money for the original X-men, but Fox wouldn't allow it. He also asked for a longer running time but, again, Fox wouldn't allow it (more showings means bigger opening weekend revenue which equals broken records and good publicity). Fox did some great promotion on the film, but failed to make it worth seeing for anything other than the original material. I think X2 should have gotten more money, especially with the rising publicity of Kelly Hu, Hugh Jackman, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, the Lord of the Rings name recognition of Ian McKellan, and the two Oscar winners in the cast (Berry and Paquin).

[Thunderbolts]

Thanks to your sig, I bought Thunderbolts #76, I kinda liked it. Never was a 'Bolts reader before, though.


It's been cancelled at #81, so your purchase did nothing to prevent the inevitable.. Yay big business. Also, boo big business.

[Shogun2727]

I just bought it to see what all the hoopla was about. Is it cancelled or going to be renamed like they did with X-Force/X-Statix (the other controversal, but improved, change)?

[bjmc1975]

Originally posted by phantom1592
does it really matter WHICH studio gets the rights?

Well, if Warner gets hold of it, it'll either turn to total garbage after the first sequel or spend the rest of its life in development heck.....

[the itsy bit]

Originally posted by LuckyJ
If it were to go my way, I'd have Marvel break it off completely with Sony and sell Spider-Man rights to Fox. Then Fox would have X-Men, Daredevil, FF, and Spider-Man.

I've been very pleased with how Fox has handled its comic movies so far. Spiderman is, by far, better than DD and X-men, but with X2 coming out in a few weeks, Fox might be raising the bar a bit. I would hate to see them slaughter Spider-Man.


Fox rules, because they made Starwars, X-men etc, !!

I found the X-men movie Xtremely good though not entirely true to the comiX it was awesome and in my opinion better then Spiderman.

Daredevil was good until DD got stabbed and ran, the whole "end-fight" scene was absolute garbage which ruined a lot of the movie.

The Hulk,hmmm we will just have to see but I feel that It can never live up to my expectations (I loved the Old Hulk movies though!). and why in the World would this movie cost more to make (120 MILLION !?) then Spiderman,Xmen ?!
It will never make as much money as the other movies !!

Xmen2 looks very promising !! definately a must see.

[crusher]

Well it just goes to show that the greed at places like Sony knows no bounds. They take part in a 1.3Billion Dollar Enterprise with Marvel and they still try to take more out of their pockets. I am getting tired of how we as consumers are treated by not only Sony Pictures but by Sony Music and the rest of the cronies that think they know whats best for all of us! I hope Marvel lays a whipping on Sony and teaches them that might doesn't always make right!:( ;)

[Ramplate]

Originally posted by Zekeup32

On the Spider-Man movie note, I would really hate to see Spider-Man fall down the same shoot that Batman did, great first movie, second one was ok, and after the third don't even waste your money.

That won't happen unless someone suffers a HUGE Brain Fart and hires an idiot like Schumakker to direct. But he's already proven he can't.

[FEGG]

Hey eventually EVERYONE will get to own marvel. i'm just waiting for my shot


You know, you can own Marvel NOW. I do. It's up over 100% since Spider-Man came out!! If a Sony buy is even remotely possible, I'd suggest getting on board real soon...

[LuckyJ]

The hulk movie is going to completely rule.

I have a feeling that it is actually going to be a good film and not just a fanboy flick. Also, the hulk is probably just as, if not more, recognisable than Spiderman. Expect INCREDIBLE box-office numbers. I'd wager that it'll break the Spidey record.

[Qwaurk]

Originally posted by LuckyJ
I think X2 should have gotten more money, especially with the rising publicity of Kelly Hu, Hugh Jackman, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, the Lord of the Rings name recognition of Ian McKellan, and the two Oscar winners in the cast (Berry and Paquin).

Has Hugh Jackman been in anything besides the X films? Whenever FX runs X-Men they always mention him and Halle Berry as starring. Halle I can understand but I haven't seen let alone heard of Jackman being in anything else that warrants promoting him as a popular actor. Same thing with Resident Evil movie when the DVD was coming out. They kept promoting the hispanic lady as some big actress when never heard of her before or since as evidenced by not even remembering her name.

[flamepulse]

hugh jackman stared alongside berry in swordfish the year after x-men and then lost a bet or somthing and did kate & leopold, other then that he did some tv and some small time movies. it was x-men that made him the star he is though.

[Qwaurk]

Ah, ok, thanks for the info.

[MrHappyJetpack]

And the hispanic lady from Resident Evil was also in several other movies. They werent BIG big movies, but really, Milla Jovavich(sp) hasnt been in a lot of BIG big movies either.

[Hadez]

Who? Michelle Rodriguez?

[MrHappyJetpack]

Oh, and sony deserves what it gets. They practiced dirty business here, and should pay for it.

And I hope a studio never buys marvel. If that happens, one of two things can happen:
A: They run it like a comic book company should be run, and they make it better than it ever was with their massive amount of pull in the entertainment world, or
B: They let it run itself into the ground.

I see b as more likely, unfortunately.

[LuckyJ]

Jackman was also in Someone Like You with Ashley Judd.

He's a big star outside of film, also. He's been doing musical theatre for ages. He played Curly in a London production of Oklahoma.

Milla Jovovich Had a huge role in the 5th Element, but has made awful career choices since. She's an A-lister waiting to happen.

Michelle Rodriguez had a pretty big part in The Fast and the Furious which made her "famous." She was also in the somewhat critically acclaimed Girlfight.

[Hadez]

She was also in Blue Crush.

[Doomtoy]

I suspect Fox is tightening their belt moviewise because their TV business is hemmoraging red ink like mad, last I heard.

I don't know diddly about Sony, but I've heard a dozen different stories about how movie studios will try and take people to the cleaners by claiming that they "haven't shown a profit, the reports aren't in yet," when they're rolling in dough. I mean, think about it. All they have to do is stall you. If you DON'T sue them, they get to keep the money. If you DO sue them, they're sitting on your money and racking up interest while you spend YOUR money trying to get YOUR money away from THEM. Worst that can happen is that the studio spends all the money they made from sitting on your share on the lawsuit. It's reprehensible, but I understand a lot of stuff is like that in Hollywood.

As to when the X-films will start to stink... well... in a lot of ways, I think the Batman films were victims of their own success. Tim Burton knew what he was doing, but when he got tired of Batman and moved on, the franchise went to "workman" directors who were trying to do Burton's style without any clue of how to do what Burton did by reflex.

Imagine any Hitchcock movie remade by Joel Schumacher or the guys who made ID4, and I think you can see what I mean. There's style, and there's substance, and Tim Burton had both. His imitators did not.

This is in direct contrast to the Superman movies, where the studio began paring back the budgets after the second one.

We have entered an age where superhero movies do well at the box office. This is nice, for those of us who like superheroes. As to how long the quality can keep up... well... we'll see. I'd hate to see the studios begin to meddle with guys like Sam Raimi or Singer, just because they think they've got a gold mine they can't possibly screw up...

[flamepulse]

correct me if im wrong but i thought universal studieos owned marvel.

[bjmc1975]

Nope. No studio owns Marvel.

[Gumpold]

While searching to see if this information has already been posted, I found this thread.

Apparently, their differences have been settled because it appears that the future isn't as much in doubt as it once was.

This is from Studio Briefing via IMDB:

It now appears that Spider-Man will be for director Sam Raimi what Star Wars was for George Lucas -- a series of six films that will engage Raimi's talents for years to come. Raimi told the website Sci Fi Wire that Sony Motion Picture Group Chairman Amy Pascal had told him that she wants to make six Spider-Man pictures. "So I think she's a woman of her word. And if she says there'll be six, there'll be six. ... If they were to ask me, and if I felt as passionate as I feel now about the character and had this great hunger and desire to tell the story, which I really do now, you couldn't keep me away from it."