Here at CBM, we hear (read) it all the time. Fans want franchises like the Fantastic Four, X-Men and Spider-Man to fail at their respective studios so their rights will revert back to Marvel Studios. And while it’s somewhat understandable why some fans would want those rights to revert back to Marvel, those wishes are misguided at best.
First of all, while some of you will probably disagree, the X-Men and Spider-Man franchises are not crap. Are they what we wanted? No, not exactly. Is what we got, crap? No. Not even close. We’ve discussed this at length in the past, but the truth is what we’ve seen in the comic books doesn’t always translate well to live action/big screen production, so amends have to be made. Granted, Sony should not have killed off the Green Goblin in the original Spider-Man. Clearly they jumped the shark on that one, but I’m pretty sure it was because they envisioned their Spider-Man franchise as a trilogy, so I get it. I don’t agree with it, but I get it. And Fox went with a conglomeration of old (original) X-Men and New X-Men, and then went with the “original” X-Men that only included one original X-Man in the bunch (Beast)—Professor-X aside. I don’t get that either, but I did like all four films, especially X-Men (II) United and X-Men: First Class. Were any of them what we wanted or expected? No. Were they crap? No, unless you’re a diehard/hardcore fan that refuses to allow a little leeway in the movie interpretations of their favorite comics, to which I would suggest you let go of your X-Men’s Angel blanky and let your mommy wash it. Seriously…it’s time to wash that tear stained thing. She’ll bring it back. I promise.
Unless you’re 16, that is…
Marvel Studios didn’t come into prominence until 2008, with the release of Iron Man. Since then they’ve produced seven movies for the big screen. That’s seven movies over the past four-plus years (The Avengers was their only movie in 2012, but what a movie it was). But if you go back to the early 2000’s, when X-Men and Spider-Man came out and got the ball rolling, twenty-four Marvel movies related to Marvel franchises have graced the big screen—some of them well received, some of them not so much.
But none of them crap. Well, except for Elektra. I’ll give you that one.
What’s that you say? Fantastic Four was crap as well? Ghost Rider was craptastic? And the first Hulk movie, with Eric Bana, was crapulisous? Well, understanding the old saying that one man’s trash is another man’s gold, you might want to hold off on those ratings for a second or two.
When Ghost Rider came out, a lot of people dissed the movie for all assorted reasons. But after Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance came out I noticed a shift in fan perception when comparing the two. Suddenly the special effects and story of the original were not as bad as previously thought. It’s funny how that works, right? We see something and think, “That’s crap.” Then we see a different version and think, “You know what? What I thought was crap doesn’t look so bad anymore.” I’m not saying both Ghost Rider movies were great. What I’m saying is one was clearly better than the other—the first movie being the better one, after so many trampled all over it upon its release.
Hindsight. What a wonderful concept.
It was the same way with the Fantastic Four, a franchise that turned out to be a double-edged sword, so to speak. The first movie did in fact twist around somewhat the origins of Marvel’s first superhero family and Doctor Doom, and the sequel completely bastardized the world consuming character of Galactus, to the point of unrecognizable. But both had their strong points, most notably the Thing, Human Torch and Silver Surfer. Jessica Alba was clearly miscast as Sue Storm, and Reed Richards’ portrayal wasn’t brainy enough, although we can’t fault Ioan Gruffudd solely, and I don’t want to get started on the Galactus debacle. But as for the other “highlights” of those movies, it worked. Were the movies crap? No. Were they what we wanted or were expecting? Sort of, but not really.
My point is that it’s a good thing that multiple studios own the rights to some of Marvel’s characters, as well as other comic book properties. It’s a good thing because if they didn’t, we’d all be sitting back waiting, and waiting, and still waiting for the next Spiderman or X-Men movie to come out, because Marvel/Disney has made it clear they’re only going to put out two Marvel properties a year—with maybe a third once in a great while.
With movie rights staying where they are, between now and 2015 we’re going to get the following Marvel related movies…
2013:
Iron Man 3
Thor: The Dark World
2014:
Amazing Spiderman 2
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Fantastic Four (reboot…or should this be in 2015?)
2015:
Avengers 2
Ant-Man
That’s nine movies in a three year window.
Now take a look at WB’s schedule, as they own the movie rights to all DC characters. We got the Batman trilogy, over a seven year period, with Green Lantern and Man of Steel thrown in to stretch it out to eight years. That’s five movies in eight years, a little over one movie every two years. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy, but it looks to me like Marvel’s current situation, with other studios owning the rights to some of their characters is in our favor.
So the question is: Do you only want to see two or three Marvel character movies a year, or would you rather prefer three or four a year? Because if Marvel/Disney gets the movie rights to all of their properties back, that’s what you’re going to get…two movies a year, with a third slipped in once in a while.
Case in point: Marvel just recently got the rights back to Daredevil, but who knows when we’ll see their version of the character. I’m sure they’ll do it, but it might be five more years or longer until we see it.
So the next time you think you’d like to see all of Marvel’s characters revert back to Marvel Studios, just understand that if that happens, it may mean better true to the source material movies—but we’re going to have to wait a while to see them. And probably a long while.
I’m Citizen…