Chapter 547 Copyright
The Hulk, Poseidon Namor, and the female version of the Hulk are in the hands of Universal.
The X-Men series, Daredevil, Galactus, Silver Surfer and Fantastic Four are owned by 20th Century Fox.
On May 16, 2000, Artisan Entertainment reached an agreement with Marvel to make at least 15 comic characters into movies or TV series, including Captain America, Black Panther, Black Widow, and Deadpool , Iron Fist, Ant-Man, Punisher, Humanoid, Vampire Morbius, Longshot, etc.
On October 23, 2003, Lionsgate acquired Artisan Entertainment and inherited its Marvel character copyrights.
What needs to be mentioned here is Iron Man and Deadpool.
In 1990, Universal bought the character rights of Iron Man, Hulk and Namor.
In 1996, 20th Century Fox bought the copyright of Iron Man from Universal.
In 1999, the copyright of Iron Man was transferred to New Line Cinema. However, none of these three companies paid much attention to Iron Man. In the end, the copyright of Iron Man was taken back by Marvel in 2006, and "Iron Man" was adapted and produced, helping Marvel achieve its glorious future.
The Marvel copyrights currently held by New Line include Iron Man and Blade.
Then there's Deadpool.
If Xu Liang had not interfered, the copyright of Deadpool would have been purchased by New Line Cinema in 2004.
In 2005, it was bought by 20th Century Fox.
Unlike the X-Men, the copyright sold to Fox by Deadpool has a limited time limit, similar to Spider-Man's copyright at Sony.
If no new movie is released after a certain period of time, the copyright will be revoked.
This is why Sony remakes Spider-Man every three or four years.
Fox put Deadpool in "The Wolverine", but fans didn't buy it when they saw the revised version of Deadpool and expressed serious protest. In the end, Fox chose to reshoot Deadpool's solo movie. So there was the "Deadpool" solo movie.
In addition to Artisan and 20th Century Fox, Sony is also a major holder of Marvel copyrights, and has obtained the most popular Marvel copyright "Spider-Man".
The process is also somewhat tortuous.
Spider-Man was sold to Cannon Pictures in 1985, but the other party was blind to gold and jade.
By 1989, Cannon Pictures was acquired by French film company EMI, but Cannon Pictures chairman Minahan Golan took the rights to Spider-Man to 20th Century Fox.
Twentieth Century Fox was also unlucky. After acquiring the copyright, it failed to film.
Later, Golan sold the script to adapt Spider-Man to Columbia Pictures, preparing for James Cameron to shoot it, and Arnold Schwarzenegger to star as Doctor Octopus.
But it failed due to various reasons.
Later, MGM acquired some assets of 20th Century Fox, including the Spider-Man script, but Columbia Pictures insisted that the copyright should belong to them. In the end, Columbia Pictures took the Copyright to Spider-Man.
Xu Liang feels distressed every time he reads the information here.
If I could buy MGM earlier, I might have a chance to get involved with Spider-Man.
This is the most profitable comic copyright for Marvel and even the entire United States.
From Toby Spider to The Amazing Spider-Man to Dutch Spider, the worst one has a box office of more than 700 million US dollars, and the highest box office "Spider-Man: No Home" has a global box office of as high as US$1.879 billion.
There are also Spider-Man spin-off movies "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", Marvel series, and peripheral copyrights.
Spider-Man alone is worth over 10 billion dollars, almost as much as the entire Marvel series.
It shows how profitable it is.
The key thing is that Sony not only holds the copyright of Spider-Man, but also the copyright of other comic characters related to Spider-Man, such as Venom, Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Mysterio, etc., which can be adapted into movies at will. Marvel can only provide some suggestions to avoid conflicts with the MCU's storyline.
The Venom two-part film has accumulated nearly $1.4 billion in box office.
One Spider-Man and derivative copyrights are enough for Sony to continue to eat.
Now that "Spider-Man 1" has been released, with a box office of more than 800 million US dollars, as long as Sony's people are not stupid, they will not sell this copyright. Of course, if Xu Liang is willing to spend money, he can buy it.
But if the price is too high, it is not worth it.
After spending US$3 billion, we can achieve US$20 billion in revenue and a net profit of around US$6 billion by 2020.
The return on this investment is only twice that, and when extended to 17 years, the annual growth rate is 11.76%.
This net benefit must be good, even good, to others.
But for Xu Liang, it was not satisfactory.
And you may not be able to get 30% of the net profit. After all, overseas movies are not like the United States where you can get half.
Like China, the maximum is 35%.
So, the actual rate of return must be lower.
As for, will Sony sell the Spider-Man copyright for US$3 billion?
As long as Howard Stringer is not stupid, he will only sell for higher prices.
The box office of "Spider-Man 1" exceeded US$800 million, including VCD, TV rights and film and television peripherals.
One movie can make Sony at least 200 million US dollars.
Even if evaluated at twenty times the net profit, Spider-Man's copyright is worth US$4 billion.
As an old Hollywood hunter, Stringer will definitely not let go of this big piece of fat.
"1.8 billion US dollars, just 1.8 billion US dollars. Although the price is a bit high, it is not too outrageous at least. It will be a long night and many dreams, so hurry up and sign the contract."
"Yes."
"Have Artisan Entertainment contacted Universal?"
After acquiring Marvel, Xu Liang of course wanted to recover as much of the copyrights he had sold as possible.
"Contacted, Artisan Entertainment is currently in contact. Although there is competition from Lions Gate, Lions Gate's capital is not as good as ours, and the hope of winning is high.
As for Universal, Olafur Watt told me, As long as we spend 200 million US dollars, the copyrights of Iron Man, Hulk and Namor will be ours.
Mr. Xu, the people at Universal are totally convinced that we are the boss.”
Xu Liang. He smiled and said: "It's normal. Who makes them short of money now?"
"When Marvel is finished, you ask Billy to talk to Artisan Entertainment, and you personally talk to Universal. As long as the price is It's not too exaggerated, just sign the contract
Remember, we must hurry up before Global and General Electric reach a cooperation. "
General Electric is not short of money, so it may not be willing to sell the copyright.
"Yes. ”
Xu Liang originally planned to ask Liao Yan to go to 20th Century Fox to ask.
But after thinking about it, he decided not to do it.
After acquiring Artisan and taking the characters from Universal, the main characters of the Avengers are basically assembled.
The remaining characters are enough to be developed for a long time, so there is no need to plot against 21st Century Fox.
Furthermore, apart from the X-Men series, Daredevil, Galactus, Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four, there are basically no popular copyrights, and he is too lazy to work on them.
After explaining, Liao Yan hung up the phone.
(End of this chapter)