Do you think Sony will ever give the rights back to Disney?
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Xaeden — 9 years ago(November 05, 2016 05:31 PM)
No they wouldn't. It would take far too long for Disney to earn back billions of dollars to justify such an expense to investors. We're talking about well over a decade, maybe two, for them to see a return.
Say a Marvel produced Spider-man film earns a billion dollars in revenue at the box office. $300-400 million is what they would have spent on marketing and production costs combined. Some of that can be recouped via product placement and tie-in deals with companies that currently all goes to Sony. We almost never get told how much that offsets costs. "Man of Steel" was a rare exception where we were told it earned $160 million from those methods. Since this is Spider-man we're talking about, let's be generous and say they could get back $200 million, leaving them with $200 million that they have to earn from ticket sales.
Now, ticket sales are split with theaters. A successful film can earn a studio 50-60% of the domestic box office haul. If Spider-man takes in $350 domestically, it's fair to say it earned around $200 million for the studio so let's just say that we're now at zero made, zero earned. That means everything from here on out is profit. But wait; cuts of international theater sales are much, much lower because in addition to having to split profits with theaters they also have to pay tariffs designed to keep too much money from leaving a country. Each country sets their tariffs at a different amount, but for some countries a studio will only see 15% of the money earned in ticket sales once theaters and the government get their takes.
It's impossible to calculate this clearly, but let's say, overall, studios earn 30% of the overall international ticket sales. That's only $195 million in profit for a film that earned $650 million internationally. Additional money would come in from sales of DVDs, Blurays, and TV airing rights, but they also have to pay taxes so their total profit would again get whittled down.
The big money is in merchandising rights. The only problem is that Marvel already owns all the merchandising rights for Spider-man so right now Sony has to front those production/marketing expenses for Spider-man movies that Marvel helps with while Marvel gets to make boatloads of money selling all the Spider-man merchandise that these movies help to push.
When Disney paid $4 billion for Marvel they paid for everything; movie rights, merchandising rights, licensing rights. The only thing they didn't get were the rights to things already licensed out (Spider-man's movie rights, X-men's, etc). Nevertheless, they earned their money back pretty quickly because they were selling toys and such alongside producing these movies. Same thing with Star Wars, which they also paid $4 billion because it's a whole franchise with lots of different ways to see returns.
Spending money on the movie rights alone is a whole different ballpark. Even if they get Spider-man's box office north of a billion (which is a very valid possibility - I just used a billion before as an example) you're still only looking at a few hundred million in additional returns per film if they own the rights. Further, they can only put out a Spider-man movie once every 2-3 years. You also have to keep in mind that subsequent movies tend to cost more, not less, and once certain people's contracts run out you might even have to let them get a cut of the profits (like Robert Downey Jr. has been getting since the first Avengers movie which netted him over $50 million of the profits). So if Disney spent the same $4 billion for the Spider-man movie rights alone you could be talking about a good 20 years or so until the movies make that money back and nobody knows if superhero movies will even still be viable by then. Investors are smart enough to know this and would freak out, causing stock prices to go down, which is its own financial headache to deal with.
Remember, Marvel doesn't get to make any extra money by putting Spider-man in other films to boost the box office returns of less popular characters because they already get to do that with this deal and have to pay Sony none of their profits.
You might be thinking, well, what about spin-offs? Here's the problem, though; Marvel can only put out so many films a year. One issue is that they don't want to over-saturate the market (if they do, they'd end up cutting into their own ticket sales because people are only going to pay to see so many superhero movies a year) and another is simply the difficulty involved in trying to put out too many interconnected movies in a year.
Currently, they put out 2 films per year. They've been wanting to put out 3 a year, but the closest they'll come will be in 2017 when they will have worked to create three upcoming films thanks to this Sony deal. Maybe they'll end up being able to pull it off consistently, but are they going to work on 4 films some years if they get the Spider-man movie rights and introduce a spin-off? Unlikely. More likely they'll ju -
ZakkWyldeMyLittlePony — 9 years ago(November 07, 2016 12:01 PM)
Sony really screwed up with Spider-Man with 3 and the two Amazing films. I would like it better if Disney had the full fledged rights.
Metallica, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fan -
brodiemarschall — 9 years ago(November 18, 2016 10:55 PM)
And y'know, the first trailer for Homecoming is set to be released with Rogue One, I've always thought Spider-Man was still Sony's just becuase they still own and distribute him, But Disney seems to be getting more and more control, It'll be fun to see if this gaining more control thing eventually leads to Marvel getting the full rights back from Sony, ending the partnership that started almost 2 years ago. Heck, Disney's even got the movie in their upcoming slate of movies,not mentioning its partnership with Sony.
http://www.google.com.au/url?q=http://comicbook.com/marvel/2016/11/17/first-spider-man-homecoming-trailer-to-debut-with-rogue-one-a-st/&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiBy8CAnrTQAhWMmJQKHVxTCeMQqQIIJDAB&sig2=8faSdVGnBgqefvWiuQRiwQ&usg=AFQjCNHl4DPpgc4KMRyeLVVoqPKhBLX0fw
https://ohmy.disney.com/news/2016/11/15/breaking-live-action-mulan-a-wrinkle-in-time-and-more-disney-movies-have-set-release-dates/ -
brodiemarschall — 9 years ago(January 03, 2017 09:48 PM)
Yeah, But they ended up making the deal with Sony to make the movie instead, But will it remain that way? The current answer is probably yes, both Sony And Marvel are making out really well with this deal. Marvel has one less $200m movie is to finance but they still have full creative control and the benefits of him in the MCU. Some fans probably still like the the idea of Marvel Studios owning Spidey wholesale but this is a pretty darn convenient compromise. So yes, For now, Spider-Man is still a Sony Character.
http://www.newsarama.com/23486-ten-lingering-questions-about-spider-man-in-the-marvel-cinematic-universe.html#s10
http://www.heyuguys.com/10-questions-raised-marvel-sonys-spider-man-announcement/8/ -
brodiemarschall — 9 years ago(January 03, 2017 10:49 PM)
Yep, And if they ever decide to end the partnership, I hope Marvel gets the full rights back, Because unless Sony gives them the rights without selling them, A revival of SSM won't happen, And no company will revive it,
https://twitter.com/DevonWallRain13/status/811805049957601280 -
Xaeden — 9 years ago(January 03, 2017 11:31 PM)
Sony gave them back the animated TV rights years ago. The movie rights that Sony continues to have are now separate. They used to be owned under the same entertainment license but Sony ceded the animated TV rights for concessions involving the movie rights and now Marvel owns the animated TV rights and Sony owns the movie rights. Sony giving back the movie rights would not change anything vis--vis the status of the cartoon you want to see revived because the reason that Marvel can't continue the show (assuming they wanted to) has nothing to do with the movie rights.
The issue is that when a studio produces content under a license they then own that content independent of the license. So although Sony no longer has the rights to air new Spider-man cartoons they continue to own the rights to all cartoon episodes that they made in the past. The storylines, the designs, all of that is owned by Sony so if Marvel wanted to use them they would have to pay Sony for a license to those specific rights and Marvel is not going to do that when they can just make a new show instead.
The same would be true if the movie rights reverted back to Marvel. Sony would still continue to own the rights to the cartoon episodes it produced and it would continue to own the rights to the past movies they made. Marvel would either have to, again, license those rights separately or they'd have to buy them from Sony and not only is Marvel unlikely to care enough to do that but Sony is unlikely to agree as it means they can no longer earn money from things like DVD sales, which they can continue to do regardless of if they own the license to produce new movies or not. Studios do sometimes sell elements from their creative libraries but only when they're in a bad spot as others are only going to pay a fraction of what can earned on old content over time.
Even in this case, where it's not just about selling existing content but an imagined revival of the series, the problem is that SSM is not unique. Marvel much rather make a new, unrelated series (as they've done) then to revive an older show so even if there was any interest in reviving it (which, as I understand it, there isn't since the person currently in charge of Marvel's cartoons is not a fan of serials) they'd literally need to be able to get those rights for pennies on the dollar for them to even consider it over making yet another new show that they don't have to pay anything for besides the production/marketing costs. -
brodiemarschall — 9 years ago(January 03, 2017 11:44 PM)
Yeah,I know, Spider-Man is the only property that makes money for Sony, Underworld: Blood Wars(Distributed by Sony's parent division, Screen Gems), Which has no Thursday screenings on its release date and The Comedian(distributed by Sony Pictures Classics) have been getting negative reviews lately, which are signs that they could flop, and now there were rumours that Sony would merge it's video game and movie division allowing Andrew House to take over the company but they denied it saying there was no room for him to oversee Sony.
http://nypost.com/2016/12/11/sony-considers-merging-gaming-and-film-divisions/
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/underworld_blood_wars_2017
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_comedian_2017/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/55196522@N05/sets/72157625135851207/detail/