fantastic_four

I don't think Disney/Marvel care about the actual FF characters. But they DO want the villains/supporting characters that are attached to the FF contract. Doom, Galactus, Anhilus, Kang, Super-Skrull/Skrull Race, Surfer, etc. As what, X-Men villains? I don't see what good having the rights to any of those characters does them without a wider array of heroes to pit them against with the exception of Silver Surfer. And even he's only good for at most one solo flick; Surfer is far better as a supporting character than a standalone hero. Huh? Where did X-Men come into this equation? I was talking about Marvel/Disney's interest in getting the rights back to the characters in the FF contract by whatever means. Oops, my bad, misread that.

I don't think Disney/Marvel care about the actual FF characters. But they DO want the villains/supporting characters that are attached to the FF contract. Doom, Galactus, Anhilus, Kang, Super-Skrull/Skrull Race, Surfer, etc. As what, X-Men villains? I don't see what good having the rights to any of those characters does them without a wider array of heroes to pit them against with the exception of Silver Surfer. And even he's only good for at most one solo flick; Surfer is far better as a supporting character than a standalone hero.

one hit wonder. will be interesting to see when/if he ever directs another film. won't be anything w/ any kind of budget when/if he does. It looks like he's done. This is a level of loopy-flaky-crazy I haven't seen anyone come back from.

Oh my god...I didn't realize just how insanely deluded the guy was until this comment.

They probably have to finish it and intend it for release. The only reason the 1994 film wasn't released is that Marvel paid the producer not to. Avi Arad once said Marvel paid "a couple of million dollars" to buy the film's rights and destroy it.

Which was the best-written yet lowest-earning of all the X-Men films. While historical drama is my absolute favorite type of fiction and I'd enjoy a period piece, it has become clear to me after watching my favorite historical dramas get cancelled early over the years that most people don't. Mad Men was a critically-acclaimed show that I watched from start to finish that I was surprised lasted as long as it did due to mediocre ratings. The sci-fi, space, and relationship elements that were appealing about the FF in 1961 are all still appealing today, so it can definitely be translated to modern times.

The fatal flaw is that the problems with all of Fox's movies are at the upper management level, and people in that position will virtually never tell their boss what boils down to "we can't do our job, so can we hire Marvel to do it for us?" All we can hope for is that the Fox CEO figures out that working with Marvel is in their best interest. Unfortunately the current CEO is fairly new to the position, and it wasn't long after he got it in 2012 that relations with Marvel went from frosty to all-out war from both sides, so I'm not optimistic. The key point will be the outcome of their negotiations to get the X-Men television show. Let's hope for a diplomatic victory there of some sort.

OCD fans would complain just as much about these alternate versions of the origin as they have about the Negative Zone origin Millar wrote back in 2003, and both suggestions you guys just gave aren't really even that different from it. The origin details from the 2005 film probably stays closest to the original by having a rare cosmic storm event occur coincidentally at the time of their spaceflight.

These are the two pages from FF #1 that contain the origin. I see why Millar changed it; the details don't hold up in the post-space race modern era.

The Negative Zone is a fictional antimatter universe, so any name given to a planet in it isn't a renaming of the universe itself. Except that when they were explaining it to the government they said it was an alternate universe to which they have started calling "Planet Zero". I haven't seen it, I've only heard Trank's claims about it in an interview. When they go through the portal, where do they end up? In space, from which they have to travel to a planet, or do they go through and walk right out onto another planet?

The Negative Zone is a fictional antimatter universe, so any name given to a planet in it isn't a renaming of the universe itself. You're missing my point. Why change the reference at all? Why change their origin so they get their powers from there in the FIRST place? Why did they need to change it up? It makes zero sense. Trank said in a Kevin Smith interview a few weeks ago that he didn't change the reference, he just left it out of the first film. He planned to call it the Negative Zone in sequels. I doubt more than 1 in 10 hardcore fans can even name any of the named planets from the Negative Zone in the comics, so adopting the NASA-like numbering sequence of "Planet Zero" for the first planet discovered there isn't much of a stretch. The origin elements you're referring to were changed by Mark Millar in "Ultimate Fantastic Four" because very little of it made sense within a modern context. When Stan wrote the story in 1961, the Russians were planning that year to send the first human being into space, so the idea of Reed stealing the ship to beat them there was easy for audiences to identify with. Nobody knew what the effects of that would be, so Stan played upon what was in everyone's mind--how would space affect human beings? By the end of that same decade, it had become well-established that the latent radiation in space doesn't have much effect on humans.

Only the origin from your list. Mark Millar noticed what any of us would have noticed when modernizing the origin that having Reed steal a rocket in an effort to beat the Soviets into space doesn't make sense today, so he ditched that. The Ultimate origin had the team as students at an advanced school along with Victor Van Damme. Sue and Johnny's dad had invented a portal to the Negative Zone, but before the kids went through it for the first time Victor monkeyed with it and they ended up getting mutated during the trip.

The Negative Zone is a fictional antimatter universe, so any name given to a planet in it isn't a renaming of the universe itself.

Hmm, I didn't realize that. That company and its parent is far easier to find a value for--about $55 billion as compared to Disney's $75 billion. They both sound like super heavyweights to me.

Who exceeds him?

There's no way that number incorporates the child corporations of News Corp.

Disney / Marvel. I'm pretty sure their net worth is multiples of what Fox's is. Fox is owned by the News Corporation, i.e. Rupert Murdoch. Calculating the net assets of that conglomerate and weighing it against Disney's is a tough thing to do. All I could really say is I have no idea except that Murdoch owns a bigger chunk of the planet's media than anyone else. I googled Rupert Murdoch net worth as $13BIL but Fox's net worth as $11BIL so not sure. Disney is apparently at about $74BIL. Now add the profits from this list of the hundreds of newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and television networks owned by News Corporation. That's what's staggering to calculate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assets_owned_by_News_Corp

Yup. Marvel wins no matter what they do. It's just going to take some time for Fox to realize it. They either partner up with Marvel, sell the rights to Marvel or they continue to bleed while Marvel waits for the inevitable to happen anyway. Marvel should definitely play hardball, but Fox probably won't screw up FF forever. Is there any way to figure out how much Marvel makes from the Daredevil series on Netflix? I have no idea how much television shows make.

Disney / Marvel. I'm pretty sure their net worth is multiples of what Fox's is. Fox is owned by the News Corporation, i.e. Rupert Murdoch. Calculating the net assets of that conglomerate and weighing it against Disney's is a tough thing to do. All I could really say is I have no idea except that Murdoch owns a bigger chunk of the planet's media than anyone else.

Been suggesting something similar. Marvel allows FOX to add the "and live-action TV rights" to their X-Men contract. FOX agrees to a mutual termination of the FF rights contract. This gives Marvel back not only the FF, but Galactus, Doom, Surfer, Kang, Immortus, Anhilus and a few other big cosmic & ancient-being type characters. And a good number of the cool baddies. Not to mention, it also cleans up any potential lawsuits or gray area when it comes to the use of the Skrulls/Super-Skrull. That seems like a lot for Fox to give up. Doesn't sound realistic.

Wikipedia says that Marvel settled. If Marvel thought they owned the rights, you'd think they'd just outright create an X-Men television show instead of doing that dumb Mutant X clone.

If Fox doesn't have those rights, who has them? Marvel ran that "Mutant X" show back in the early 2000s, and Fox threatened them with a lawsuit simply for using the word "mutant." So neither one of them can do a television show right now? That's messed up.

Can't believe how much the contract gives to Fox. Apparently any new mutant that Marvel creates ends up being theirs in the films. I know the Darwin character that appeared in X-Men: First Class was first created long after Fox first got their contract and even long after the first X-Men film. Because of that, I can see why Marvel might tell the writers to stop creating new characters, but sheesh, can they do that forever? Who's going to win this dumb game of chicken?

Money or someone getting fired would easily change it all. I dunno who's pissed at who, so it's tough to even say who at Fox Feige is pissed at.

There will definitely be another movie due to the fact they need to put one out at some point to retain the rights. They've got another 10 years now, so... Plus Fox and Marvel are bitter, bitter enemies now. Marvel isn't getting back anything for free from now on, and Fox will get nothing except a complete lack of cooperation from Marvel. Feige and the Fox execs have been in a state of all-out war for a few years now following various disagreements when they were negotiating over the Daredevil rights. Fox won't let Marvel use the word "mutant" in its films, Marvel killed off Wolverine in the comics last year in what some think is a move to do what it can to de-value the character, Marvel has expressly forbidden its writers from creating new mutant characters in the comics, and Marvel refuses to let ANYBODY create toys based upon Fox's films, including themselves.