Anyone that knows about who holds the rights to our beloved characters knows that SONY owns the Spider-man and Ghost Rider franchises, FOX owns X-men and basically all mutants (except possibly Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver), The Fantastic Four and Daredevil, and Marvel Studios owns practically everyone else, including Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, etc.
For some time now, Universal has owned the right to the Submariner, and were even in the beginnings of starting work on the movie, as it was announced back in August 2009. (Check out the article here: http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/08/12/namor-the-sub-mariner-movie-still-in-the-works/ )
Now if you payed close attention recently, you may have noticed the same things I have. When Kevin Feige was interviewed by Collider, he was asked specifically about the rights to some of Marvel's characters:
Collider: I definitely got a whole bunch of questions from people who follow me on Twitter, and one of the things that a lot of people ask me was can you clarify which mutants Marvel owns and which Fox/Sony/Universal might have or is not something that you want to talk about?
Feige: Well, Fox has mutants and Sony/Universal…Universal doesn’t have anything. Sony’s got Spidey and Ghostrider, and those family of characters. And Fox has X-Men and Fantastic Four and Daredevil and those family of characters. But any mutants in particular? Mutants are X-Men.
Although they were asking about mutants (which Namor is actually one), Feige calls attention to all heroes that are owned by these studios. Did Feige make a horrible mistake here? Doesn't seem likely. If Universal doesn't own anything anymore, it means they might have scrapped production and sold it back to Marvel just in time for Marvel to finish up the Captain America script and put Namor alongside the Invaders.
After all, it's been 9 months since Universal announced they were STILL considering doing the film and we haven't heard a peep out of them since. God knows how long ago they bought the rights. It's very possible they just took too long and simply lost their rights. Remember, they owned the rights to Hulk, but decided to just give it back since the original Hulk didn't do so hot.
**SPOILER ALERT**
Another thing to note is the new screen shot from Iron Man 2 (supplied to us from a friend here at CBM), which supposedly shows the locations of meta-humans all over the globe. Coincidentally, there is one location in the middle of the water. An obscure island?? Doesn't seem like that would make much sense, considering all the rest of the locations pinpoint a specific hero/villain.
Not too shabby of an argument, huh? Now if we can just get the rights to DOOM! Avengers movies need one of the best villains ever created!! Alright, enough of that.
You may be saying, "Nah, they could never put that into a believable cinematic universe!" But look what they're doing already. Ask someone not into comics if they believed they could put into one movie a futuristic dude in armor, a Norse god from another realm and an old solider from 60 years ago...not to mention a guy that shrinks and talks to ants. As for his costume, they don't need his speedo attire; they could easily go with a costume like this:
Anyway, this is all speculation of course (and my enormous wishful thinking!). Thanks a bunch for reading, it would be great to get some input from you guys...