Marvel's "Phase One" Blu-ray set containing The Avengers and all of the movies leading up to it has been highly anticipated by fans for quite a while now. The 6 movie/10 disc set comes packaged in a briefcase, which is a replica of the one containing the Tesseract, or "Cosmic Cube", from The Avengers. The design of said briefcase was actually based on one manufactured by German luggage company Rimowa BhmbH - who, you guessed it, hold the copyrights. Apparently all of the necessary legal paperwork was filed and permission granted for the briefcase’s use in the movie, but not for the selling of a replica case, or the Tesseract itself. Doh!
Here is part of the complaint filed by Rimowa BhmbH in federal court in California..
“Marvel did not obtain any license or authorization from Rimowa to make replica copies of the case for any purpose . . . the plastic ‘replica case’ [is] a close copy of Rimowa’s Topas attaché case in every respect but quality -- from the proportions and coloring, to the style of the handle and latches, and, of course, in the use of the trademarked parallel ridges around the body of the case.”
The set has been pulled offline and no is longer available for pre-order. Ah well, there are other versions available so I guess we'll just have to make do with them until this is all sorted out - if it's all sorted out.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.