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Chapter 580 Marvel Copyright

That same evening after the press conference, the mainstream media in the United States were divided into two distinct camps.

One side, led by Wall Street capital, launched a media offensive against YueDong Games. Newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times continued to focus on the scandal of YueDong Games causing epileptic deaths.

The other group, represented by technology industry media and some general media, focused their reporting on the series of countermeasures announced by Leap Games at the press conference.

The article provides an in-depth analysis of YueDong Games' proposed solutions regarding the misuse of technology within the industry and the joint development of industry-wide regulatory standards.

The Los Angeles Times, as a pioneer in supporting Leap Games, believes that after the scandal, Leap Games did not choose to evade responsibility, but instead took the initiative to propose building a cross-enterprise and cross-departmental regulatory collaboration system, an attitude that deserves recognition.

At the same time, the public is urged to see the possibility of self-reform within the industry while pursuing accountability.

Besides print media, television stations also exhibit distinct viewpoints.

In the live broadcast from Fox Business News, the stock price curve of Leap Games on the giant electronic screen of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange showed an almost vertical downward trend, with the red downward arrows being glaringly obvious.

The anchor delivered a solemn news report about Leap Games: "This once world's largest gaming company is now embroiled in a scandal involving a death due to epilepsy. Today, its stock price opened lower and continued to decline, ultimately closing at $236.47, a single-day drop of over 9%, marking its largest single-day decline since its IPO."

"By the close of trading, the stock had traded 470 million shares, 8.2 times the daily average. Market data showed that there were still 120 million shares in the sell order queue that had not been filled, indicating that panic selling was out of control."

In a top-tier mansion on Manhattan's Upper East Side, Jessica nestled in Ernst's arms, her eyes glued to the Fox Business News broadcast on the television screen. Her refined face was contorted with disgust. She gave a disgruntled snort. "Fox is truly repulsive. Even though the stock price had stabilized by the end of the trading day, they're still spreading rumors of panic selling and loss of control. This blatantly biased reporting completely violates the principles of media fairness." "From today onwards, I will never accept another film role from 20th Century Fox, not even for an Oscar-caliber script. I will not compromise."

Ernst chuckled and gently put his arm around her shoulder, his fingers softly playing with her delicate little hand. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend. As a thorn in the side of 20th Century Fox, I'm not surprised at all that they're taking this opportunity to kick Jumping Games while they're down."

The Titanic incident had already created animosity between 20th Century Fox and MGM. Later, when James Cameron stopped accepting scripts and chose to take a break, 20th Century Fox also blamed MGM for the incident.

They believe that it was MGM's efforts to win over the truck driver that made him unwilling to offend MGM and collaborate with 20th Century Fox again, which is why he chose to take a break from acting for a while.

Most importantly, MGM is currently in litigation with 20th Century Fox, and also with Marvel.

Marvel has sold the rights to a moderate number of characters. In the 80s, Cannon Films sold Spider-Man, Captain America, and the Fantastic Four.

New Line Cinema owns the rights to The Punisher, while Orion Cinema owns Daredevil, though it was later sold to 20th Century Fox.

In the 1990s, Universal Pictures had Iron Man, and in the 1980s, they had Hulk.

Then there's X-Men and Blade from 20th Century Fox.

The copyright for Spider-Man held by Cannon Pictures has already been reclaimed by Marvel because it was not filmed within the five-year period stipulated in the contract.

The copyright for Captain America was complicated, but MGM was willing to pay and managed to get the rights back.

Due to Ernst's acquisition, the rights to Marvel characters like Iron Man and the Hulk are now in MGM's hands. The most troublesome are New Line Cinema and 20th Century Fox; New Line Cinema's Blade movie was already filmed and planned for release this year, but MGM interfered.

Didn't you finish filming?

Okay, then, name your price, including the movie and its copyright.

The new line wasn't originally intended to be sold; who knows if it might turn out to be a cash cow?

However, faced with MGM's threat to kill off the character if they didn't sell, they directly asked for an exorbitant price of $80 million.

By announcing this price, the new line has certainly opened its mouth quite wide.

The filming cost for Blade was only $4500 million, and that was the publicly announced figure.

They're all old hags, why are they trying to act all virtuous?

MGM knows how much of this is just hype.

The publicly announced project costs likely include the budget for publicity.

Even based on this fee, the copyright for Blade Runner is equivalent to $3500 million.

However, New Line Cinema explained that they were optimistic about the market potential of Blade Runner, and the premium was a reasonable estimate of future revenue. The two sides engaged in several rounds of protracted negotiations, and the current acquisition price has been reduced to $7200 million.

Well, at this price, MGM definitely won't lose out.

Ernst recalls that Blade was Marvel's first successful superhero movie character, grossing nearly $1.5 million worldwide.

MGM has a wider distribution network and richer marketing resources. If MGM were to handle the distribution, the box office could potentially exceed $2 million.

The acquisition cost of $7200 million can be recovered through box office revenue alone, and subsequent development of derivative products and sequel production can bring long-term benefits.

New Line Cinema also wants to sell. For New Line, the $7200 million acquisition price means that after deducting $3000 million in filming costs and some marketing expenses, it can achieve a net profit of about $3000 million. For New Line Cinema, which is relatively small in scale, this is equivalent to its total annual net profit.

While Blade is a promising project with great potential, it also faces significant market uncertainty.

The key issue is that none of Marvel's previous superhero movies have been successful. Even with New Line Cinema's Blade, the market research data during the pre-production phase wasn't optimistic.

It was precisely this mutual attraction that led to the postponement of the release of Blade.

In summary, all that remains for 20th Century Fox are the core X-Men characters and related IPs, as well as the core Fantastic Four characters and related IPs they acquired early on.

By acquiring these two rights, Marvel has essentially regained control of all the character rights, laying the foundation for building a unified Marvel Cinematic Universe.

"Because of the Marvel copyright issue?" Jessica asked. She knew this wasn't surprising, as the matter had escalated to legal proceedings and was making headlines in Hollywood.

MGM wanted to be open to discussion, but 20th Century Fox didn't even bother to talk and directly said they were willing to buy the rights for $100 million per film.

This is what happens when I stick my face out to you, and you not only turn your ass towards me, but you also fucking take off your pants and spread your legs.

Since we can't negotiate, let's go to court. If I can't buy it back, you can forget about bidding either.

The Fantastic Four contract includes a return clause. According to the original contract signed between Cannon Films and Marvel in 1986, if the copyright holder fails to produce and release a brand new Fantastic Four movie within six years, the copyright will automatically revert to Marvel.

The last time Fantastic Four was filmed was in 1992, and it was basically a filler film made to protect the copyright, and it was never released.

Now, six years later, according to the contract, the copyright of Fantastic Four should revert to Marvel. MGM, as the actual controller of Marvel's relevant copyrights, has the right to demand that 20th Century Fox return the copyright.

Fox's reasoning was simple: the copyrights they purchased stipulated that they only needed to release new works within five to seven years, and that timeframe hadn't yet passed.

As for the copyright of X-Men, that's a bit of a problem.

This was sold by Marvel to 20th Century Fox in 1994, with the core principle of regular new film renewals. There were no films or sequels developed within seven years, and the rights automatically reverted to Marvel.

If related works were filmed within seven years, the return period will be automatically extended for another seven years.

However, this wouldn't stump Ernst. If 20th Century Fox ultimately refused to sell, he planned to have Stan Lee kill off these characters. He'd then create a cousin or sibling, turning Wolverine into Wolf Kong and Deadpool into Dead Guard.

The sole purpose is to build a complete Marvel Universe.