How is it that different? Don't you think Fox thought the same when they spent $150 million or more on their last Fantastic Four movie?
Of course not. The situation is very different now.
In 2013 Fox had only made two bad FF films that, arguably, just had the wrong director. Fans (including me) were willing to give them another chance. If they hired the right director and script-writer in 2013, they could have turned everything around and turned FF into a thriving franchise.
But they squandered that opportunity. They went from bad to terrible and did everything as absolutely wrong as they could. And they even, bafflingly, gave the fans a huge extended middle finger through the entire process.
When they released a film in 2015 that wasn't just bad but was one of the
worst superhero films of all time, they blew it in spectacular fashion.
The company's total stock value literally lost
billions with a huge, sharp drop directly connected to the FF reviews and Rupert Murdoch specifically called out FF as the reason for their poor year.
As an FF fan, I went from cautiously optimistic in 2013 to the point that I will be
furious if Fox announces a new film. I, and millions like me, will vent our anger all over the internet if Fox announces another film and it will be the ugliest thing we have ever seen.
Fox management has to realize that, but even if they are complete idiots and really don't understand fans, they'll just look at the numbers. Here are the box office numbers for each film in order:
There is no way any vaguely competent Fox manager is going to stick their neck out and advocate a new FF film in less than five years.
And because they have no intention to make a film, they have a fiduciary duty to get anything they can for the property. Because of their gross incompetence, the property has close to zero value and Marvel can just wait it out and wait for the time that the rights will, inevitably, return.
So Marvel won't offer a lot, but if they offer $1 million and nothing more, Fox should take it.
Because there isn't likely to be much money on the table, the rights will likely transfer relatively quietly one way or the other.
But if, hypothetically, Marvel ever put $100 million on the table and Fox didn't take it, shareholders would be rightly angry and would have something actionable. If Fox management threw $100 million away when they had no intention to make a film, shareholders could take them to court for violation of their fiduciary duty and they would have a strong case.
It won't get to that point because Marvel would never put that kind of money on the table, but if they did and Fox management turned it down, that would be a blatantly incompetent action.
