X-Men TV Show Comment was Foreshadowing

[Aztec]

There is no way Marvel will settle for a few points on a television show they don't have to approve. They have ALL the leverage here. They can say no and Fox can't do anything about it.

Marvel/Disney has been very willing to forego "free money" when it comes to Fox for merchandising and comic book tie-ins. They are simply not doing any of this out of pure spite. Why would they suddenly be willing to let Fox walk for a small nominal fee now? That's absurd.

No, Fox is going to have to give to have a hope of getting. And the one thing they have that Marvel wants is the ENTIRE F4 franchise; which thankfully happens to be completely valueless to Fox. In fact it's less than valueless its costly since it's estimated that they will lose $60M on this film! That's worse than Lone Ranger and John Carter!!!

Oh and don't believe the "leaked info" that Fox is still planning on making the F4 sequel. That's just bluster while it's still in theaters and a last minute attempt to keep M/D from completely barreling over them on the negotiating table. They would be beyond mad to attempt a sequel to the most hated film of the new century that they lost $60M on.

 

[Zarex]

There is no way Marvel will settle for a few points on a television show they don't have to approve. They have ALL the leverage here. They can say no and Fox can't do anything about it.

Marvel/Disney has been very willing to forego "free money" when it comes to Fox for merchandising and comic book tie-ins. They are simply not doing any of this out of pure spite. Why would they suddenly be willing to let Fox walk for a small nominal fee now? That's absurd.

No, Fox is going to have to give to have a hope of getting. And the one thing they have that Marvel wants is the ENTIRE F4 franchise; which thankfully happens to be completely valueless to Fox. In fact it's less than valueless its costly since it's estimated that they will lose $60M on this film! That's worse than Lone Ranger and John Carter!!!

Oh and don't believe the "leaked info" that Fox is still planning on making the F4 sequel. That's just bluster while it's still in theaters and a last minute attempt to keep M/D from completely barreling over them on the negotiating table. They would be beyond mad to attempt a sequel to the most hated film of the new century that they lost $60M on.

What, you don't think this is a good deal?

FOX gets:
1) X-Men TV rights, which will mean $10s of million of dollars in streaming rights alone. Gotham, for example got $40 million from Netflix for Season 1.
2) Enhanced visibility for their popular X-Men cinematic franchise. Year round advertising for the X-Men films!
3) Enhanced visibility for the X-Men franchise through tie-in merchandise. Apparently once they receive full control over the tie-in rights Marvel is going to move the Black Panther and Spidey figures over to make room for Ivan Ooze.
4) Greater control over the X-Men character family. Thanks for the TV rights, Marvel! The price for reacquiring the franchise just went up.

Marvel gets:
1) FOX's % ownership of tie-in merchandise. Worthless.
2) A % of FOX's TV program(s). Not worthless, but a tiny percentage of what Marvel could make by putting "Runaways" or "Young Avengers" on the air.
3) Not the rights to the FF character family. Let's be clear, they're not on the table. We must have another chance to provide enormous damage to your IP while losing millions of dollars!
4) Maybe a couple of characters we're not currently using. You know, the crappy ones.

 

[Aztec]

What, you don't think this is a good deal?

FOX gets:
1) X-Men TV rights, which will mean $10s of million of dollars in streaming rights alone. Gotham, for example got $40 million from Netflix for Season 1.
2) Enhanced visibility for their popular X-Men cinematic franchise. Year round advertising for the X-Men films!
3) Enhanced visibility for the X-Men franchise through tie-in merchandise. Apparently once they receive full control over the tie-in rights Marvel is going to move the Black Panther and Spidey figures over to make room for Ivan Ooze.
4) Greater control over the X-Men character family. Thanks for the TV rights, Marvel! The price for reacquiring the franchise just went up.

Marvel gets:
1) FOX's % ownership of tie-in merchandise. Worthless.
2) A % of FOX's TV program(s). Not worthless, but a tiny percentage of what Marvel could make by putting "Runaways" or "Young Avengers" on the air.
3) Not the rights to the FF character family. Let's be clear, they're not on the table. We must have another chance to provide enormous damage to your IP!
4) Maybe a couple of characters we're not currently using. You know, the crappy ones.

Lol. Well said.

 

[the gael]

Marvel does not have all the leverage here.

Very true, but fans do.

Because Fox has already demonstrated that they are prepared to hold onto the rights like grim death.

It's only a question of how much pressure fans want to put on them now. After the flop, it's pretty clear that the audience will follow them.
A nice little scorched earth policy with the threat of propagating the fire to other Fox Marvel properties, and I'm sure they will become way wiser. They have already lost, and we (not Marvel) can just cost them so much money if we want that it gave me an idea of the Paradise (and to Fox an idea of Hell)
All we need is to be strong and united and Fox will surrender or die. They have no card left. They have no option left. nothing.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Any speculation on our part gets pretty inaccurate pretty quickly because we don't know the details of the contracts. We don't know the exact conditions, percentages, servicing fees etc. that are in place now.

But what we do know is that Marvel would like to get FF, Doom, Galactus, Surfer etc. back and locked down now so that they don't have to take even the minimal risk that Fox will pull this s*** again in 7 years.

And we know Fox would like to make an X-Men TV show and they've indicated they're close to finalizing that deal.

I can't see any reason to lie about that, so I think it's reasonable to assume they are currently talking. I think it's also reasonable to assume the only thing Fox has that Marvel wants is the FF rights package. And Marvel wants the FULL rights package. I can't imagine they're even talking unless the full rights package is being put up by Fox.

So they'll talk and negotiate and offer different details, but I think the bottom line is the basic trade will be X-Men TV rights for FF rights, and that trade will make sense for both sides and it will happen.

 

[kguillou]

Here's the other thing though. FOX KNOWS that the F4 property is valuable and handled the right way can be of great worth. Let's not forget, despite what we may think of the Story films, the first one made $330 million at the BO. That's not a bad intake at all especially in 2005 and that's more than the first X-Men. That movie was for all intents and purposes a hit. Yes, the second one didn't make that much money but it at least broke even. This new film is really the only F4 film that just plain sank critically and financially.

The point I'm trying to make is, I think we are all overconfidently assuming the mindsets of the FOX execs; that its all as simple as "Well, we screwed this up, let's get our X-Men tv rights, give this back to Marvel and get on with our lives." I'm not convinced that those are the talks going on right now amongst the FOX executives. I think its more likely they're saying "We screwed this up, bad, but this property has proven to be valuable and can be again if we dont screw it up in our next attempt, how exactly are we going to do this?" I don't think FOX sees this property as worthless.

Believe me, I want nothing more than for this thing to return home to Marvel proper, but you've got to think that FOX is still kicking themselves in the rear for letting go of Daredevil. Giving up F4 to Marvel is literally handing Marvel a $ billion because we all KNOW Marvel would make this property insanely profitable. Just sayin', I don't think this failure is necessarily going to cause them to throw in the towel just yet.

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

F4 could be a goldmine for Marvel. I say could because Fox has so severely tarnished the brand Marvel would need many years to rebuild if they ever got them back.

F4 will never be a valuable property for Fox. They've demonstrated that three times in a row now. Of course they're welcome to fail again. The FF are already a joke. What difference does it make now?

 

[Zarex]

Believe me, I want nothing more than for this thing to return home to Marvel proper, but you've got to think that FOX is still kicking themselves in the rear for letting go of Daredevil. Giving up F4 to Marvel is literally handing Marvel a $ billion because we all KNOW Marvel would make this property insanely profitable. Just sayin', I don't think this failure is necessarily going to cause them to throw in the towel just yet.

It's possible, but FOX execs should be able to sell this trade to their stockholders:

"We have entered into an agreement with Marvel that will allow us to expand our multi-billion dollar X-Men franchise into network television. Superhero based programming has never been more popular, and we strongly believe that our first offering, "X-Investigations", will stand amongst the finest of the genre. This will be a direct tie-in to our movie franchise, and discussions are already underway to have some of your favorite film characters make appearances on the show."

"To complete the deal we allowed the rights to the FF character family to revert to Marvel. This will free up resources for increased cinematic offerings in the massive X-Universe, including the upcoming "X-Force", "New Mutants" and "Star Jammers" franchises. We are extremely excited about our plans for the X-Men Connected Universe in both TV and film. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements!"

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

Fox's biggest mistake may have been their first 2005 movie. They completely blew the first opportunity to introduce the Fantastic Four to the world. The FF should have been epic like the Avengers. Now the Avengers have come and stolen their thunder.

Contrast that with films like Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy - Marvel's first films with those characters absolutely knocked it out of the park.

 

[kguillou]

But again, that 2005 movie WAS a hit, despite what we may think of it. It made good money for its time.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

It's possible, but FOX execs should be able to sell this trade to their stockholders:

"We have entered into an agreement with Marvel that will allow us to expand our multi-billion dollar X-Men franchise into network television. Superhero based programming has never been more popular, and we strongly believe that our first offering, "X-Investigations", will stand amongst the finest of the genre. This will be a direct tie-in to our movie franchise, and discussions are already underway to have some of your favorite film characters make appearances on the show."

"To complete the deal we allowed the rights to the FF character family to revert to Marvel. This will free up resources for increased cinematic offerings in the massive X-Universe, including the upcoming "X-Force", "New Mutants" and "Star Jammers" franchises. We are extremely excited about our plans for the X-Men Connected Universe in both TV and film. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements!"

True, and can you imagine the converse:

Shareholders: Hey, what happened to that X-Men TV deal you were talking about?

Board: It fell through. Marvel wanted too much. They wanted the rights to the Fantastic Four and we didn't want to give them that because we intend to sit on it for the next 7 years, pay maintenance fees for that privilege and then turn them over for free.

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

But again, that 2005 movie WAS a hit, despite what we may think of it. It made good money for its time.

Spider-Man 3 was a bigger hit.

Hit or not - it didn't translate into long term success. It was a squandered opportunity IMO.

 

[kguillou]

Spider-man 3 made more money than its predecessors despite the critical backlash and Sony was in active development for a 4th with Raimi. They only stopped cause Raimi had had enough and Sony realized it would be cheaper anyway to go with a new director, cast, production team etc.

The only point I'm making is, from a purely financial standpoint, the Tim Story films were profitable for FOX.

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

Spider-man 3 made more money than its predecessors despite the critical backlash and Sony was in active development for a 4th with Raimi. They only stopped cause Raimi had had enough and Sony realized it would be cheaper anyway to go with a new director, cast, production team etc.

The only point I'm making is, from a purely financial standpoint, the Tim Story films were profitable for FOX.

Yes you're right. The first was profitable - sorry if I seem like I was trying to argue that - I'm not. But artistically it failed and hurt the long term viability of the franchise IMO. Further ROTSS cost more and made less. Story wanted to do an FF3 but it never happened.

Lastly, Avengers became what the FF should've been. The F4 is now firmly in "also-ran" territory which is why they are completely screwing with the mythos in order to make it different somehow but what's the point then?

The FF should be sharing in the fantastic world of the Avengers and the greater MCU not competing against it.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

But again, that 2005 movie WAS a hit, despite what we may think of it. It made good money for its time.

Terminator 2 was an even bigger hit and that franchise is dead too. Furthermore, the 2005 film wasn't well-liked and it resulted in the box office nose-diving for the sequel.

The Fantastic Four franchise is dead. They can make a sequel or a remake and it will just be more of the same. There is no reviving it for Fox at this point and any more money squandered on it is foolish. It is like trying to still draw water from a well that dried up years ago.

 

[kguillou]

I completely agree, the F4 has the potential to be as big as The Avengers. It has all the ingredients, especially that magical "family" factor that would go over well with the general audience. But alas.

I just think that FOX may not necessarily be throwing in the towel completely yet. I think they're aware of the F4 potential worth.

 

[Urich Leeds]

I think part of the reason many people have a hard time believing a deal will ever happen is they think people at both Fox and Marvel are as extreme ideological hard-liners as many of the people around here.

But ideological differences can quickly be overcome when checks with lots of zeros start going back and forth.

Didn't Fox just make a film that featured the line: "We're stronger together than we are apart"?

Fox really needs to play nice with Marvel right now. Because if WB/DC becomes the CBM monster they're trying to be, both Marvel and Fox (but Fox most of all) stand to lose, should this petty game of keep away and uncooperative behavior continues.

 

[Willie Lumpkin]

Fox really needs to play nice with Marvel right now. Because if WB/DC becomes the CBM monster they're trying to be, both Marvel and Fox (but Fox most of all) stand to lose, should this petty game of keep away and uncooperative behavior continues.

I agree, but what's crazy is Fox has all the raw materials. They have some great characters that can work in individual films or as part of ensemble just like Marvel and DC do.

I don't know why they ever spent time futzing around with FF. They should have made a really cool Cyclops film. Let the audience get to know him. flesh out his character a little bit and then, when he's in an X-Men film audiences will know him and like him better than they do now.

Fox has made a bit of a mess of things now, but if they had focused on a long-term plan for X-men films and executed it properly the way Marvel did, there's no reason their X-Verse couldn't be just as successful as Marvel's universe. Marvel's characters aren't inherently better than the wide variety of great characters Fox has with the X-men. Marvel just uses them a lot better.

If somebody said to me: "Would you rather see a Colossus film or an Ant-Man film?" I'd take Colossus over Ant-Man, any day. But Marvel made a great Ant-Man film and Colossus has gotten maybe 5 minutes of screen-time.

And Fantastic Four has just been a distraction for Fox.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

I completely agree, the F4 has the potential to be as big as The Avengers. It has all the ingredients, especially that magical "family" factor that would go over well with the general audience. But alas.

I just think that FOX may not necessarily be throwing in the towel completely yet. I think they're aware of the F4 potential worth.

You're right. They might not be willing to throw in the towel yet. They should be though because there is practically no way that road doesn't end in failure. I just hope Fox realizes that.

 

[Aztec]

I agree, but what's crazy is Fox has all the raw materials. They have some great characters that can work in individual films or as part of ensemble just like Marvel and DC do.

I don't know why they ever spent time futzing around with FF. They should have made a really cool Cyclops film. Let the audience get to know him. flesh out his character a little bit and then, when he's in an X-Men film audiences will know him and like him better than they do now.

Fox has made a bit of a mess of things now, but if they had focused on a long-term plan for X-men films and executed it properly the way Marvel did, there's no reason their X-Verse couldn't be just as successful as Marvel's universe. Marvel's characters aren't inherently better than the wide variety of great characters Fox has with the X-men. Marvel just uses them a lot better.

If somebody said to me: "Would you rather see a Colossus film or an Ant-Man film?" I'd take Colossus over Ant-Man, any day. But Marvel made a great Ant-Man film and Colossus has gotten maybe 5 minutes of screen-time.

And Fantastic Four has just been a distraction for Fox.

I agree. If they want a "cinematic universe" so badly, they totally have one with the X-Men. They don't need F4 and they clearly have no idea how to use them anyway. Although I would argue that they have totally squandered their X catalogue as well. It's been 15 years of the Wolverine and Magneto show!

 

[AndrewGilkison]

Fox may not be willing to give up the rights just yet or maybe Disney/Marvel don't have any interest in the Fantastic Four film rights. Fox damaged the brand quite heavily and Marvel Studios' film slate is demanding enough as it is.

Meanwhile getting a few characters like the Skrulls, Shi'ar, Silver Surfer, etc. would present great opportunities for Marvel to expand upon their Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel IPs. If they get 100% of the Fantastic Four, good for them, but I wouldn't hold my breath. It's not like 20th Century Fox is in the position that Sony Pictures was in over the Spider-Man IP or in the same position they were in with their struggles.

You are kidding yourself if you think Marvel wouldn't love to have Fantastic Four back. If if was up to them they would have ALL of their properties back under one roof, and they would only have to compete against DC/WB at the box office.

If Fox has something they want from Marvel, why wouldn't Marvel use that as leverage?

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

I completely agree, the F4 has the potential to be as big as The Avengers. It has all the ingredients, especially that magical "family" factor that would go over well with the general audience. But alas.

I just think that FOX may not necessarily be throwing in the towel completely yet. I think they're aware of the F4 potential worth.

To do this Fox has to be ALL IN. FF was always "Go big or go home". It's always been this way. But Fox is too damn cheap and they never trusted the source material.

Fox can't just hope to luck out with a cult hit or something like the first X-Men movie in order to justify an actual budget worthy of the title "Fantastic". When they finally went "all in" on X-Men look at the difference it made. DOFP although it underperformed domestically won a very respectable international box office.

But the whole thing is a non-starter now. After Fant-for-stick's colossal implosion there's no way Fox will ever spend the kind of money a Fantastic Four movie would require now.... ergo the F4 are doomed to failure at Fox.

They need to just cut it loose. Move on and focus on more promising projects. Stop throwing good money after bad.

And stop breeding such ill will among fans. Otherwise it's going to bleed over into their more successful ventures like X-Men.

 

[Mysteryman]

Sure,Marvel wants the FF but they also very much want the cosmic chracters back too
The Silver Surfer,Galactus and the Skrulls to name a a few.

 

[Ragnaroknroll]

Sure,Marvel wants the FF buthey also very much want the cosmic chracters back too
The Silver Surfer,Galactus and the Skrulls to name a a few.

Marvel already has the Skrulls though. Whedon and Feige both said it during the promotion of the Avengers while explaining why they chose to use the Chitauri instead.

Not to say there isn't value there - aside from the titular characters (which thanks to Fox at the moment are completely worthless) - the FF franchise would bring to Marvel: Galactus and his heralds (including Silver Surfer), Uatu the Watcher, Rama-Tut/Kang the Conqueror/Immortus/Nathaniel Richards, and last but certainly not least Dr. Doom.

As a fan, sure I want those all to be a part of the MCU but thinking from a business perspective how much is that worth exactly? I have no idea but I don't think it's worth as much as Fox will want.

 

[Mysteryman]

They probably want Doom back too.