EDITORIAL: Marvel v. Fox: Dawn of Who is More Mature(and Justice!)?

In the late 90s, a near bankrupt Marvel sold many of their comic rights to various movie studios to, well, not fall under. Some rights reverted, some didn’t. Many fans dislike the way movies have been done at the two movie studios besides Marvel Studios that make Marvel films. What my opinion on this matter is immaterial at this point. I am just looking at this as a business decision, and to see if this decision(s) are really mature.

So in 2012, when Fox was developing Daredevil, their allotted time to reach a certain stage of production was up, and the rights were to revert back to Marvel. Negotiations took place, and Marvel said that Fox could keep Daredevil, if they gave up Silver Surfer and Galactus to Marvel. It’s clear Marvel wanted a larger cosmic universe, as they did with Guardians of the Galaxy, and Surfer and Galactus would be apart of that, and not someone like Daredevil. Well, Fox saw more opportunity in the cosmic characters and not in Daredevil, so Marvel got Daredevil instead.

In recent threads, biased Marvel Studios fans like to bring this up, as a way of showing how “immature” Fox is, as they are “unable” to negotiate. I see it a different way. How is Fox in the wrong? When you OWN the characters, it’s your RIGHT to do with them as they please, if the contract isn’t up, of course. Now, I get that people dislike the way certain studios make movies, but in a purely business sense, Fox is not in the wrong in any way, shape or form. They BOUGHT these rights, and they are following the contract’s due dates, or it’s reverting back.

So I hope we can get past that very dumb argument that Fox couldn’t negotiate, and how “immature” they are. People use it as a way of “proving” how Marvel didn’t take the first shot, and it was really mean ol’ Fox’s fault. Now, as I previously stated, it’s been VERY strongly hinted that both Fantastic Four and X-Men comics will be cancelled in an effort to cut public awareness to the characters, and for them to revert back.

Let’s start with X-Men, which premiered in theatres on July 14th 2000. In June of 2000, these were the stats for Uncanny X-Men and X-Men.

Pretty good! It was number one and two! Lets look at July, the month X-Men was released.

Hmmmm, sales decreased in July. Lets look at August.

Weird, while it went back up in ranking, it still decreased dramatically in sales.

Well, let’s look at X2, released on April 24th 2003. Let’s see where Uncanny X-Men stand in March.

So it stands at #8. Okay, what about April, the month of X2 releasing?

So New X-Men went up a bit, but Uncanny went down. What about May?

Well, Uncanny went up a rank and Wolverine took number one.

Now let’s look at the ranking of Uncanny X-Men in April, the month before X-Men: Days of Future Past was released(May 23rd 2014).

It’s #22 with over 55k in number of units sold, okay. May sales?

So in the month of May, it dropped in 1k units of sales and dropped a single ranking. What about June, the month after DOFP released?

So it dropped three rankings and lost 2k in units sold from the previous month, and 3k over the three months? Intresting…

So what am I trying to prove here? That the movie is not affected by the comic sales, but the either way around. Sales went down after the film came out, with some minor exceptions. So I really don’t see how this is a really “smart” decision for Marvel to make. I don’t see how cutting X-Men stuff will really give Fox the pressure to revert. It really will only hurt Marvel. So I covered X-Men, but Marvel is cancelling F4 to, what about their current sales?

Yikes! I guess I get why they will be booting F4 (kind of, it’s still not very wise to cancel one of the most classic superhero teams,  and a money maker but whatever.)

But what’s the deal with cancelling X-Men? I get it, Marvel wants the rights back, but honestly, Fox (and Sony!) bought the rights fair and square. When someone buys something from you when in debt, you agree to it, write up a contract, and it’s sold, fair and square, it ends there. When you get pouty because they won’t give it back even though you sold it fair and square, you just look like a five year old.

So economically and business wise, I don’t see the reasoning behind this. All that happens when movies roll around is that the comic sales decrease, and the movies still make massive BO money, regardless of the comics. In a mature sense, Marvel is just being pouty. They can’t get it back, and so they’ll simply act like it doesn’t exist, which really just screws them over, and their profits, not the other way around. But I think the most pertinent issue on everyone’s mind is, is Obama to blame?

I decided to look up Uncanny X-Men in the month of December 2008, a month before Obama took office.

So #12 with 82k in units sold. Okay. What about January, the dreaded month he took office?

Oooh, X-Men Uncanny Annual took a 20k in units hit! WOW! What about February?

So, it raised a bit. Okay. BUT, in February, it was done over 11k in units from December. Hmmm… I’m onto you Obama!

In all seriousness, I hope this shed some light on the situation. I am not biased towards either, but this really isn’t a smart bussiness move, and it’s a bit immature. Thanks for reading, and remember,