WSJ Reports Ike Perlmutter Offered Sony all Marvel Hero Film Rights for $25 Million
21 replies, posted
[quote]The Marvel of today is an unstoppable behemoth, crushing everyone who dares make a play for its superhero movie throne, but a new Wall Street Journal report points out that the Marvel of 20 years ago was so desperate for an influx of cash that it almost sacrificed control of the very movie rights that are now its golden ticket. The company had just survived bankruptcy, so when Sony approached it in hopes of securing Spider-Man’s movie rights, Marvel head Ike Perlmutter—who has been known to make bad decisions—offered something that would get a bit more money: the rights to the characters we now know as the cinematic Avengers, including Iron Man, Thor, and the Black Panther.
As crazy as that seems today, the even crazier thing is that he apparently only wanted $25 million for the whole stable of superheroes. That’s a fraction of the several billion dollars that the movies have made for Marvel Studios since Iron Man, but an unnamed big shot at Sony reportedly claimed that “nobody gives a shit about any of the other Marvel characters,” so Perlmutter agreed to give up Spider-Man alone for $10 million.
Sony’s first few Spider-Man movies made a ton of money, which reportedly drove Perlmutter crazy and annoyed his former business partner Avi Arad, but Perlmutter still couldn’t be convinced to give movies a serious try until 2005 when Marvel was able to get a huge loan from Merrill Lynch to form Marvel Studios and make Iron Man. These days, Marvel Studios is largely independent from the rest of Marvel (which is still run by Perlmutter), and it operates under the guidance of Kevin Feige—who supposedly came up with the Samuel L. Jackson “Avengers Initiative” scene from the end of Iron Man and is therefore responsible for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.[/quote]
[url=https://www.avclub.com/sony-once-turned-down-a-chance-to-buy-all-of-marvels-mo-1823048876]AV Club, as WSJ article is behind a paywall[/url]
:v:
Phew, talk about a bullet dodged!
[quote]Sony reportedly claimed that “nobody gives a shit about any of the other Marvel characters,” so Perlmutter agreed to give up Spider-Man alone for $10 million.[/quote]
Goes to the heart of a lack of vision on Sony's part. It's true that no one cared about Iron Man or Captain America at the time. Marvel's response was to make them care.
I only saw "WSJ reports Ike Perl..." on the homepage and was hoping he lost all his money or was arrested for something like that, the greedy fuck.
I didn’t realise how much of a fluke iron man becoming a big success was.
its not all horrible in sonys world, they made the blade runner sequel dont forget that
[QUOTE=usaokay;53137310]lol yea
it had great casting on an actor who was otherwise washed up, the plot and tone was nice and different from the super corny X-Men and Spider-Man movies, and Samuel L. Jackson made a cameo after the credits
I would hate to imagine if Iron Man ended up being terrible[/QUOTE]
Given the state of Marvel Entertainment as it is today i have a feeling they would have gone bankrupt by now if Iron Man didnt work out and the Disney acquisition didnt occur.
[QUOTE=autodesknoob;53137511]its not all horrible in sonys world, they made the blade runner sequel dont forget that[/QUOTE]
and it bombed
[editline]17th February 2018[/editline]
also they only distributed overseas. WB and Alcon fronted most of the real money
[QUOTE=E1025;53137298]I didn’t realise how much of a fluke iron man becoming a big success was.[/QUOTE]
like 50% of that movie was unscripted
in the sense that they knew where the story needed to go, yeah there was a script, but on a shot by shot level, they had no idea what they were doing
it was basically like a very expensive college film
[QUOTE=The_J_Hat;53137613]and it bombed
[editline]17th February 2018[/editline]
also they only distributed overseas. WB and Alcon fronted most of the real money[/QUOTE]
....So who cares if it bombed? It was great. Worthy of being a Blade Runner sequel.
[quote] and it operates under the guidance of Kevin Feige—who supposedly came up with the Samuel L. Jackson “Avengers Initiative” scene from the end of Iron Man and is therefore responsible for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe.[/quote]
ya except Tony Stark was in the Incredible Hulk first, then when they went to do Iron Man they realized they screwed up and rebooted the whole thing.
[QUOTE=usaokay;53137243]tbh Sony would have ruined it[/QUOTE]
They can't help but ruin themselves so I mean it's not like anyone would be surprised
[QUOTE=Sableye;53138049]ya except Tony Stark was in the Incredible Hulk first, then when they went to do Iron Man they realized they screwed up and rebooted the whole thing.[/QUOTE]
Iron Man came out first and Incredible Hulk is explicitly canon though?
[QUOTE=usaokay;53137310]lol yea
it had great casting on an actor who was otherwise washed up, the plot and tone was nice and different from the super corny X-Men and Spider-Man movies, and Samuel L. Jackson made a cameo after the credits
I would hate to imagine if Iron Man ended up being terrible[/QUOTE]
how [B]DARE[/B] you call the Sam Reimi spiderman corny. Those movies were good.
[QUOTE=Stroheim;53149802]how [B]DARE[/B] you call the Sam Reimi spiderman corny. Those movies were good.[/QUOTE]
corny doesn't necessarily need to mean bad
[QUOTE=Stroheim;53149802]how [B]DARE[/B] you call the Sam Reimi spiderman corny. Those movies were good.[/QUOTE]
and corny.
[QUOTE=usaokay;53149904]let's not talk about Spider-Man 3[/QUOTE]
Spiderman 3 still had moments of brilliance, and could have been way better if Sony hadn't forced Raimi to shove Venom and Gwen Stacey into the film. I'll take it a million times over the two soulless reboot films, where the director was clearly a puppet being controlled by Sony Executives.
(That being said, I don't see myself watching it again any time soon. And if I do, it'll have to be the 3.1 cut that fixes some of the plot issues like Harry's dumbass butler)
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