Remember this chart by The Geek Twins? For those of you that missed it, here’s the chart that breaks down which movie studio owns which beloved character. So as you can see the reason we aren’t getting any of Spidey’s witty Queens banter in the epic snark fest that is Joss Wedon’s Avengers is because Sony owns Spiderman while Marvel owns the Avengers. Apply the same for the majority of the marvel mutants that matter. With recent news that Benedict Cumberbatch is up for the role of Doctor Strange a companion of mine pointed out that Cumberbuttons would make a better Mr. Fantastic.
And you know after looking at the lanky bastard for a moment I have to agree. Cumberbuttons would make a mean Reid Richards. But that brings us back to the problem of Fox owning the Fantastic Four so they’re also in the Avenger Time Out Movie Sandbox.
Now I assume it would cost Marvel a lot of money to buy the rights back from all these companies. After all Avengers and X-Men both sold tickets like gangbusters. Marvel, while having a lot of money probably doesn’t have quite that much money. Sounds improbable I know but remember even Paul McCartney couldn’t afford the rights to his own music. Shit happens and corporations care about making money not movies jam packed with characters we love. So here’s my question, why haven’t we as the nerd community made a Kickstarter to buy back the rights for all those characters?
Do you want to see Marvel Civil War? Because this is how you get Civil War. Or Onslaught or Avengers Vs. X-Men…but fuck House of M, I’m still mad about that. I digress….
Kickstarter? Anyone? Hey it got me more Veronica Mar’s I figure it’s worth the attempt. I got a spare 20 on me.
More Than Fables 
It’s not just about Marvel not having the money. It’s Fox and Sony not being willing to sell the rights back. Why would they? They can make millions every single time they make a movie with those characters. If it costs them $100 million to make a movie, and it gets a box office of $101 million, then they still made a million dollars. (This is obviously ignoring things like marketing and distribution costs, among other factors, but you see my point.)
And they can do that every year. So why would they ever give that up? They wouldn’t. The only way they would ever give up those rights is if the movies stopped making profits at all.
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