What About X-Men? The Rights Issues That Complicate Marvel And Disney's MCU

What About X-Men? The Rights Issues That Complicate Marvel And Disney's MCU

Avengers: Endgame was the fantastic end to the first arc of an even more ambitious experiment in film history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. A mega conglomerate of various characters previously scattered to the winds through various rights holders, the MCU is basically the Infinity Gauntlet of cinematic universes.

But if you go back a couple decades, it was a possibility that didn’t look like it’d ever get off the ground. It took a lot of time and business dealings through various movers and shakers, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe eventually formed into the beast that it is today through some well-timed moves.

Of course, there are still some properties out there, in the wild, waiting to come home. And then there are others, with Fox's X-Men franchise being arguably the biggest, which have recently been brought back into the fold, but need to have their entrances planned. Either way, the history behind Marvel’s cinematic endeavors, and how they came to be, spell out the hurdles of both the company's past and future films, and how they complicate the completion of Disney's Marvel Cinematic Universe. So let's go over them!

How The Marvel Movies Came Into Existence

Before Marvel Studios existed, Marvel Entertainment Group was the big tent under which Marvel Films operated as a division. The properties of the storied Marvel Comics brand would be shopped to other studios for production, and this era led to some interesting results.

Under the Marvel Entertainment Group era, the original film versions for both The Punisher with Dolph Lundgren and Captain America with Reb Brown were made, as well as an entire film version of The Fantastic Four produced by Roger Corman. That last project was never officially released, seeing as it was merely made in order for production company Constantin Films to keep the rights, but neither The Punisher or Captain America were terribly big hits.

Eventually, Marvel Studios was born out of Marvel Films’ past history, and started with a big deal involving 20th Century Fox. For seven years, Fox and Marvel Studios would make films like the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, as well as Daredevil and Elektra. But even with that deal in place, and producer Avi Arad as the big wheel behind it all, the universe of Marvel films was fractured due to a lot more licensing deals in the works with other studios.

How The Rights For Marvel’s Early Films Were Split

As previously mentioned, The Punisher and Captain America were both previously made into films, as was The Fantastic Four under the older Marvel Entertainment Group run of things. But in addition to those properties, there were two really big hits that happened at other studios, all thanks to Marvel’s practice of licensing to almost anyone who had the right deal.

The first was 1998’s Blade, which made New Line Cinema a big name in the late ‘90’s, as well as boosted Wesley Snipes’ star standing in Hollywood. The franchise would run for three films, and one TV show, with Blade: Trinity being the final film in that particular line.

The second, and perhaps most successful run of films outside of the Fox deal was Spider-Man, which was licensed to Sony alongside a whole bunch of spinoff possibilities. Starting with 2002’s Spider-Man and running through 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the five Spidey films ran before and during the MCU’s launch.

Some other notable set-ups in the wilderness years were the fact that New Line Cinema originally had the rights to Iron Man, as well as the fact that Lionsgate precursor Artisan Entertainment had a deal to make films with heroes such as Thor, Black Widow, Deadpool and The Punisher. Lionsgate would make an attempt at Marvel cinematic glory with Punisher: War Zone, but the film would only find its feet as a cult hit in the years after its release.

Last, but not least, Universal Studios held the rights to two characters, Hulk and Namor the Sub-Mariner, which would only see one of those characters leading their own movie pre-MCU (2003's Hulk). Still, this positioned the studio to become a future power player as Marvel Studios entered its next phase.

How The Marvel Cinematic Universe Came Together

There was an idea: that Marvel Studios would partner with a big Hollywood fixture to create a singular slate of superhero hits for the public to see. And this idea ultimately came down to two potential partners: Universal, which had Hulk and Namor, and Paramount, which was a more amenable partner when Universal didn’t work out.

As early as 2004, Marvel Studios had a slate of heroes it wanted to use which included the following heroes and properties: Ant-Man, The Avengers, Black Panther, Captain America, Cloak & Dagger, Doctor Strange, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Power Pack and Shang-Chi. The initial plan was to deliver two films a year, aimed squarely at the PG-13 rating.

Eventually, acquisitions would be made, and Iron Man would join that group, as well as Universal coming aboard with a deal that allowed an MCU-set Hulk film to be made. Hulk’s rights would be at Marvel, with Universal retaining a stake in that character, as the studio has right of first refusal for distribution.

Through all of these shake-ups and shifts in power, one man rose to the top: Kevin Feige. Starting out in the early days of Marvel Studios, Feige went from junior executive to President of Production with Iron Man, installing him as the mastermind who would see the MCU become a beacon of comic movie making.

The studio that started operations out of a Mercedes Benz dealership became a powerhouse with 2008’s Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr, and eventually was bought in 2009 by the Walt Disney Company for a cool $4 billion. Slowly, other properties like Daredevil, The Punisher and Blade would be reacquired after their runs with other studios expired. That said, there are still some interesting logistics that would need to shake out, in order for the MCU to become whole again.

The Notable Properties Still Outside Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, by and large, a pretty collective whole, there’s still some gaps that are outstanding in the total portfolio. While some of these are patched thanks to recent deals and shared agreements, it’s still an interesting landscape to take a deeper look into.

In particular, there seem to be three studios that have stood in the way of Disney and Marvel completing their Infinity Gauntlet of intellectual property. One has already become a vanquished foe of sorts, with two still going strong. Here’s where we stand so far with the most notable properties outside of the MCU, and the studios that hold the cards. First off, let's look at that vanquished foe, Fox.

The Marvel Rights Held By Fox

Obviously, before its acquisition, 20th Century Fox held some pretty powerful cards in its Marvel Universe deck. While Daredevil and Elektra eventually went home to Marvel proper, Fox still held onto some pretty big names in the Marvel Universe. Most importantly, Fox still had the X-Men series, with The New Mutants and Deadpool spun off from that world.

But in addition to those popular titles, 20th Century Fox had the Fantastic Four series in its back pocket. With two relatively successful films in 2005 and 2007, and the not-so-successful reboot in 2015, Fox retained ownership of that particular property, making any potential crossover adaptations even harder to potentially execute.

However, since 20th Century Fox has been newly acquired by the Walt Disney Company, the only real questions with these characters is how to incorporate them into the Marvel Cinematic Universe fold, through both pre-existing films and/or reboot potential. Still, this turn of events being such a recent development does scupper any sort of crossover hopes for the time being, as even Kevin Feige has mentioned that in the case of the X-Men, it’ll be years before anything happens.

The Marvel Rights Held By Universal

While Universal only has two properties that it can lay claim to tying up, both seem to be in somewhat usable shape with Marvel Studios. In the case of The Hulk, the problem isn’t as pronounced, as Marvel and Universal share ownership of the character.

However, the big problem comes from Universal getting a right of first refusal for distribution rights to any future Hulk films. Which means that so long as that clause is in play, and the public demands a solo film with Bruce Banner and his green rage filled half, it probably won’t happen as Disney’s going to want to distribute without as much interference as possible

The only other character that Universal laid claim to was Namor the Sub-Mariner, and while he has recently reverted to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are still some complications involved. Though, when last asked about the subject, Kevin Feige specified that it was really a matter of where or when Namor would pop up in the MCU.

The Marvel Rights Held By Sony

The greatest thorn in the side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, without question, Sony and its grasp on the rights to the Spider-Man films. With Disney and Sony sharing the usage of Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony still gets to “finance, distribute, own and have final creative control” over Spider-Man.

On top of that, there are other Marvel characters that Sony maintains ownership over, with an entire slate of films that it has branched its properties out into. Starting with last year’s big hits Venom and Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, the Sony contingent looks strong as ever. Though there are further films that are in the works that will only complicate any future moves that Disney may have in the works to make Peter Parker a part of its family.

In particular, the Morbius and Spider Women films in production could potentially make Sony the biggest source of competition for Disney and Marvel Studios. Should the Silver Sable or Black Cat projects that were previously mentioned as in production get back on track in their own ways as well, that’s another source of revenue that only makes Sony’s hold on Spider-Man that much greater.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a pretty expansive haven of Marvel Comics’ intellectual property, and in its current state, it’s pretty comprehensive. But with the outstanding rights issues and decisions ahead that Marvel Studios still faces, there will still be limits as to which characters and storylines will be able to be integrated into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

For now though, Avengers: Endgame signifies the height of the MCU’s character roster, and can be enjoyed by audiences all over in theaters now.

Why Aquaman Couldn't Actually Film In Italy

Why Aquaman Couldn't Actually Film In Italy

Most of Aquaman takes place under water and as such, it of course required the majority of the film to be shot on a soundstage. The same is true of the film's detour to Italy when Arthur Curry and Mera make their way to the island of Sicily. Everything you see there was created by the set designers. However, it turns out that wasn't originally going to be the case. The original plan had been to shoot the chase and Black Manta fight sequence on location in Erice, Scicily. Unfortunately, it turns out the town rejected the production's request to film there. It's maybe not too surprising considering what the movie wanted to do. According to Aquaman producer Peter Safran...

We were originally going to shoot in Erice until they found out what we wanted to do there.

Of course, what they wanted to do was stage one of the film's major action sequences. It starts with some statues being destroyed as Black Manta attacks Aquaman and Mera with some Atlantean soldiers in tow. The battle then breaks in half as Mera is chased by one of the soldiers while Aquaman and Black Manta face off. It's an incredibly well done sequence that, thanks to some digital trickery, appears to all be happening in a single take.

While I'm sure the Aquaman production wasn't actually planning to blow up any bell towers, it's probably somewhat difficult to film a massive superhero battle without doing a little bit of damage. If nothing else the crew and machinery required to film everything would have been massive. The town of Erice has been around for centuries and apparently wasn't interested in having a huge movie action scene take place in the middle of their town, so instead, the production team just copied the parts of the town they needed and rebuilt in on a stage in Australia. According production designer to Bill Bzeski...

At the end of the day, going to Italy and working in a historical town wasn't going to work for us if you're going to blow stuff up. So we built, literally, a whole portion of the town.

It appears that if you're familiar with Erice, Sicily, you might actually mistake what you see in Aquaman for the real place, because what was created by the crew is called a "perfect replica" of part of the actual town, in one of the special features attached to the new Blu-ray release of Aquaman.

It's too bad that Aquaman wasn't able to film in Italy. With all the time the production spent on stages it probably would have been nice to get out and be on location someplace. At the same time, I'm not sure you can fault the town for not wanting to see their historic home blown up.

Aquaman is available now on Digital HD and Blu-ray.

Avengers: Endgame Character Poster Has Fans Thinking Vision Survived

Avengers: Endgame Character Poster Has Fans Thinking Vision Survived

Is this Avengers: Endgame green line a hint, a glitch ... or just wishful thinking? It might be a combination of things, but the existence of a splash of color toward the bottom of Vision's "Avenge the Fallen" character poster has some fans hopeful he survived Thanos' snap. The posters featuring characters who survived the Avengers: Infinity War Decimation are all in color, with those confirmed to have been in the less lucky 50% shown in black-and-white. (Side note: It's like the Big Brother memory wall.) So that's why the green line in Vision's poster raised eyebrows:

You can see a green line across Vision's neck, in the poster BossLogic tweeted with this note:

My boy vision has one line of color on his poster, this could be the best sign of life error on a poster ????

He's an artist, but he didn't create that poster image. There's also a green line in the poster actor Paul Bettany tweeted. However, as many fans noted, there is no such green line in the posters shared by Avengers: Endgame directors the Russo Brothers or by Marvel Studios.

It's possible Vision's green line was a technical glitch Paul Bettany passed along. But this is Marvel, and fans have been trained to read into every little detail -- or at least fans have decided to go ahead and read into every little detail. There are any number of things that bit of color could mean, if it wasn't a mistake.

Some fans think this might be a hint to Vision returning as a ghost of himself, as he did in Marvel Comics. As CBR noted, when Thanos killed Vision the second time in Infinity War -- after turning back time from when Scarlet Witch finally destroyed the Mind Stone -- a close-up of Vision's face showed his eyes turn completely white. That was read as a possible hint to the "West Coast Avengers" storyline where Vision had been disassembled, and was essentially dead, but Hank Pym was able to put him back together as this ghost version. The new Vision wasn't just white, though, he also lacked the emotion of the previous Vision. That was particularly hard on Scarlet Witch, who was then his wife.

It's possible Paul Bettany's poster just had a technical error. But maybe... Fans don't have long to wait for answers on who might return in Avengers: Endgame. The task at hand for the survivors is to somehow fix what happened -- bring back the 50% who were snapped. Whatever it takes.

Don't forget that Disney+ is also planning some kind of Vision and Scarlet Witch series for the new streamer. Disney+ is meant to premiere later this year, and we're on standby for more details on these standalone series. Avengers: Endgame has to come out first, ending Phase 3, to give us a big hint on the direction of the MCU from here.

Avengers: Endgame opens in theaters Friday, April 26, and it will almost certainly be the biggest movie of 2019, which is jam-packed with major films. Here's more of what we know about Endgame, now that we are less than a month away from its opening.

Stan Lee’s Business Manager Has Been Charged With Elder Abuse

Stan Lee’s Business Manager Has Been Charged With Elder Abuse

After his November passing, Stan Lee left behind an incredible legacy with his contributions to Marvel. However, the last year of his life was not kind to the comic book icon, namely with the tumultuous relationship between him and his former business manager, Keya Morgan. After Lee was granted a restraining order against Morgan back in August for claims over mishandling over $5 million of his money receiving physical and emotional abuse from him, Morgan has been charged with five counts of elder abuse against Stan Lee.

The Los Angeles superior court has issued an arrest warrant against Stan Lee’s former business manager with charges that include false imprisonment, fraud and forgery, per The Guardian. Along with allegedly taking advantage of the Marvel Comics legend’s fortune, Keya Morgan also has been accused of moving Lee to an undisclosed location to isolate him from his family and friends and using their relationship to embezzle artwork as well.

An incident in May 2018 fueled the fire when Keya Morgan reportedly dialed 911 while with Stan Lee’s Los Angeles home with visiting police and a social worker to get them arrested for “trespassing” while they were called to help him perform a welfare check. Morgan was arrested with charges of filing a false police report. While in June, Stan Lee originally refuted claims regarding Keya Morgan, he decided to file the restraining order a few months later. It required Morgan to stay at least 100 yards away from Lee for three years.

The business manager was also accused of taking hold of Stan Lee’s Twitter account to post some irregular tweets and being behind a 2018 $1 billion lawsuit by Lee against his own company Pow! Entertainment, which was dropped a couple months later by the comics creator. Morgan has defended the accusations against him with claims that they are motivated by Lee’s daughter JC, who is leading a “witch hunt” with their lawyer because she could not stand how much Stan Lee liked him so much.

The lawyers representing Stan Lee Lee and his daughter, Kirk Schenck and Jonathan Freund said that since Lee lost his wife Joan in 2017, multiple people have attempted to get close to Stan Lee, his business and affairs to take advantage of him. In Schenck’s words to The Guardian:

Elder abuse is becoming more and more common as celebrities and famous world figures are living longer and longer, amassing a significant wealth profile along the way. Many elderly artists like Stan Lee are creative personality types that tended to defer financial decisions to others their whole life. The problem arises as celebrities get older and slowly lose their ability to monitor their fiduciaries – even ones they’d trusted for years.

Sounds like Stan Lee was facing a tough reality at the end of his life as multiple people close to him were seeking to exploit his fortune. In addition to recently becoming a widower, Lee was faced with over $2 million dollars in robberies that year, health issues and someone even stole some of his blood to forge his signature on Black Panther comic books in Las Vegas.

Controversies aside, the Marvel legend played a part in the recent MCU culmination by providing his last cameo in Avengers: Endgamewhich has made well over $2.5 billion at the box office worldwide in less than three weeks on the big screen.

The Avengers: Endgame Cast And Crew Are Thanking Everyone Who Made The Movie Possible

The Avengers: Endgame Cast And Crew Are Thanking Everyone Who Made The Movie Possible

This morning, it was announced that Avengers: Endgame is the movie that has been tweeted about the more than any other. Are we surprised, Marvel fans? If our timelines were full of crazy theories and anticipation before, since its release, the social media platform has been flooding with gushes about the MCU movie as fans attempt to process and recover from record-breaking box office hit.

What was a mere three-hour experience for the audience was a series of years and memories for the cast of Endgame and a chapter of their lives that some may be leaving behind following the conclusion of the Infinity Saga. Many of the stars of the film have taken to social media to express their love to fans for coming out to see the Avengers assemble and their team with sweet messages.

The man who started it all kicked things off on opening night with a simple post sharing how much his role of Tony Stark has meant to him since 2008’s Iron Man. Check out what Robert Downey Jr. said:

That's proof that Tony Stark has a heart! Let’s move on to Hawkeye who shared some amazing photos of himself and the cast at the Avengers: Endgame world premiere in Los Angeles and the Hollywood Walk of Fame where the original six Avengers placed their hands in concrete last week. He gave a shout out to fans and his fellow superhero actors on Instagram below:

The franchise’s Thor also shared the Hollywood Walk of Fame milestone over the weekend to show his love for the Avengers he started his journey with on the first Avengers film in 2012. Check out Chris Hemsworth’s recent Twitter post:

As fans started seeing Endgame in theaters, the hashtag #ThankYouAvengers started trending. Captain America wouldn’t let all the love rest on their hands and pushed the love right back around. Chris Evans tweeted this out:

Zoe Saldana took the time to particularly celebrate the Captain America actor with one of her Instagram posts. She shared a throwback post of the pair on 2010’s The Losers, a previous project that came out before they joined the expansive cinematic universe. Look at this cute photo!

Anyone else tearing up yet? Gwyneth Paltrow also went for nostalgia in her “thank you” post by sharing a photo of the Iron Man 2 squad coming together while the shooting of Endgame. Take a look:

That’s right, Jon Favreau’s Iron Man started this whole thing off! It’s since grown and morphed into something huge, such as with the recent success of the studio’s first female-led film, Captain Marvel. Brie Larson may have come a little late to the party, but she’s certainly felt the impact of the franchise (her movie is even booming again at the box office thanks to Endgame) and took to social media to share an on-set photo and a shoutout to all the love from fans, with this:

Theaters were absolutely rampant with fans over the weekend going to see Endgame, probably because so many people were tweeting about it! Mark Ruffalo (aka The Hulk) offered his love to moviegoers and the people who worked around the clock to provide service while the film played:

To close things out, Chris Pratt also showed his love for Endgame with a sneaky on-set video of much of the cast filming that huge battle sequence in the movie. Check it:

What an amazing time to be an MCU fan! Endgame certainly satisfied a lot of moviegoers who have religiously gone out to see these films over the course of eleven years and 22 movies. What now? Time to await Spider-Man: Far From Home and Phase 4.

If you're curious about what other Marvel movies are coming down the pipeline, look through our comprehensive guide.

Why Us' Twist Ending Was Necessary, According To Jordan Peele

Why Us' Twist Ending Was Necessary, According To Jordan Peele

The following contains major spoilers for Us.

Us is a movie that has a lot of audiences talking. It's a horror movie with a lot of symbolism and metaphor that has sent many back to see the film more than once and still left them with questions. However, nothing has more people talking than the film's twist ending. At the end of the story we learned that not everything was exactly what it seemed. According to director Jordan Peele, that twist was necessary because it served the entire theme of the story.

In the final moments of Us we discover that the character that we've known as Adelaide isn't exactly who we thought she was. She had changed places with her "above ground" counterpart and taken over her life as a child. This confusion over who was the "hero" and who was the "villain" of the story was exactly what the story was always about, as the director tells the Empire Film Podcast. According to Jordan Peele...

This movie’s about maybe the monster is you. It’s about us, looking at ourselves as individuals and as a group. The protagonist in the movie is the surrogate for the audience, so it felt like at the end of the day, I wasn’t doing my core theme any justice if I wasn’t revealing that we have been the bad guy in this movie. We’ve been following the villain. I say villain lightly because I think there are many experiences of the film, and I think a lot of people go through a question of what is good and evil? Does that even exist? Both characters are lovable and terrifying, based on the lives they’ve led they’ve just sort of inverted the paths.

Jordan Peele had spoken at length, even before Us was released, about how the idea of the movie was about looking at ourselves and realizing that the true enemy might not be some sort of nebulous "other," but actually ourselves. This is obvious in the fact that the "monsters" of this horror movie are dark and twisted versions of the main characters.

However, this idea is taken to another level when the film's twist is revealed. The audience is forced to question who the real monster is. We now have some degree of sympathy for the character we knew as Red, who had her life stolen from her at an early age. At the same time, the character we know as Adelaide is largely still the same person that we've known through the movie. She's still the same wife and mother trying to protect her family, even if it all came about following a questionable act as a child.

Even if you figured out the twist early in the film, as I was unfortunately, able to do, it doesn't really lessen the impact of the moment. In fact, if anything, seeing where the movie is going early on only causes you to consider the movie's questions for a longer period of time, as you watch the events unfold. That's probably the mark of a good twist.

Marvel Has Given The First Three Phases Of The MCU An Epic Name

Marvel Has Given The First Three Phases Of The MCU An Epic Name

In just over a month’s time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 3 will come to an end in Avengers: Endgame. More than closing out Phase 3 though, Endgame also puts a cap on the first eleven years of the MCU, a journey that consists of three Phases and twenty-one films. We’ve been told that Avengers: Endgame represents a culmination; the end of the book and narrative that began with Iron Man. Now, as we race towards its climactic conclusion, we finally know what it’s called. And it is epic.

According to Empire Magazine, Kevin Feige has revealed that the first three phases of the MCU are called The Infinity Saga.

Yup, that is an appropriately epic and fitting name for the 21-film journey we have been on since 2008. It’s a super cool name that is going to look awesome emblazoned on a massive and expensive Blu-ray box set one day. Considering that we didn’t even know that these first three phases would have a specific name (think of all the speculation we missed out on!) beyond just Phase 1, Phase 2, Phase 3, it is a pleasant surprise as well.

Marvel has clearly taken a page out of corporate brother Lucasfilm’s book with this name. Like ‘The Skywalker Saga’, the word ‘saga’ just conveys an extra level of grandiosity and has an epic quality to it, befitting a heroic tale, vast in scope and long in telling. Series or chronicle doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. The only thing that comes close is ‘cycle’ which is what George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novel series is often referred to as.

Sometimes the most obvious answers are the right ones and The Infinity Saga frankly sounds like the most obvious and appropriate name for the Marvel Cinematic Universe films to date.

The Tesseract, which contained the Space Stone, was introduced all the way back in Phase 1 in Captain America: The First Avenger and the Infinity Gauntlet (albeit a replica) first appeared in Thor. Thanos first appeared in the end-credits scene of The Avengers and he and the Infinity Stones have acted like a specter hanging over everything and propelling the plot ever since. That the Infinity Saga built to the Avengers: Infinity War shows that this name is the right one.

I’m honestly not sure what the MCU’s first three Phases would be called other than The Infinity Saga. The Stan Lee Saga would honor the man who Marvel owes so much to and left such a legacy in the films, but it wouldn’t speak to the story. The only other choice would have been The Avengers Saga, but we may get more Avengers movies after Endgame, so that wouldn’t hold as much weight.

There are more stories yet to come in the MCU, and Endgame is a demarcation line between what came before and what comes after. What’s interesting about finding out this name is that if The Infinity Saga is book 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, what’s book 2?

We know so little about Phase 4 (if it’s even called that) that it’s difficult to make an educated guess at this point. The New Avengers Saga? The Secret Invasion Saga? The Galactus Saga? Or, wishful thinking here as this may be more book 3 material but The Mutant Saga? We probably won’t know for some time, maybe in another 21 films, but it’s fun to think about.

Avengers: Endgame concludes The Infinity Saga on April 26. Check out our 2019 Release Schedule to keep track of all of this year’s biggest movies.