MARVEL/DISNEY F4 back from FOX

[tr2k]

On Thursday, Bleeding Cool published a report citing "a Marvel source" that Marvel plans to put current ongoing series "Fantastic Four" and "Ultimate FF" "on hold." The reason for this, according to the article, was that the "high echelons" of Marvel believed that continuing to promote the property would support or strengthen 20th Century Fox's films -- Fox has long held the live-action license to both Fantastic Four and the X-Men -- at the expense of Marvel Studios, owned and operated by Marvel's parent company, Disney.

CBR cannot confirm the exact future of "Fantastic Four" and "Ultimate FF," but has confirmed with multiple industry sources speaking on the condition of anonymity that a hiatus for the property is planned, at least as of recently. Plans can change, something that's potentially more likely now that the situation has been made public. The Fantastic Four characters are said to continue appearing in other Marvel titles, just not in a specifically branded "Fantastic Four" series.

In a second report published on Friday, Bleeding Cool stated the initiative stems from Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter. Additionally, Bleeding Cool published a purported instruction sheet distributed to sketch card artists working on a "Marvel 75th Anniversary" trading card set. The sheet listed the following characters as off-limits: the main Fantastic Four of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing and Human Torch; along with associated characters Doctor Doom, Galactus, Silver Surfer, The Watcher and Skrulls.


While Fox also controls the live-action rights to the X-Men -- the latest film in the studio's franchise, "X-Men: Days of Future Past," opened last weekend to $111 million over four days -- Marvel continues to publish a large line of X-titles. The books are still strong sellers -- "All-New X-Men" appeared twice in the Top 20 for April, with "Uncanny X-Men," "Amazing X-Men," "X-Men" and "Wolverine and the X-Men" all in the Top 60 -- so it's possible continued success has spared the line from being specifically targeted. Bleeding Cool's initial report stated that the X-Men comics are "no longer the focus of internal promotion," unless it's in tandem with the Avengers, as in upcoming Marvel event "AXIS."

Spider-Man is also not under Marvel Studios' purview, having long been a live-action Sony Pictures property. Spider-Man does not appear to be affected by these decisions -- just last month, the character starred in the highly touted "Amazing Spider-Man" relaunch, which received more than 500,000 estimated initial retailer orders -- something that's generally credited to a better relationship between Marvel and Sony than Marvel and Fox. Spider-Man also currently stars on the popular Disney XD animated series "Ultimate Spider-Man," produced in-house by Marvel.

The current "Fantastic Four" series launched this past February with a new #1, from the creative team of James Robinson and Leonard Kirk. The book debuted at No. 7 in Diamond's monthly estimated sales charts for February 2014, dropping to No. 44 in Marvel and No. 60 in April -- still placing it ahead of Marvel series including "Captain America," "Iron Man," "Avengers World," X-Force" and "All New Ghost Rider."

"Ultimate FF," set in Marvel's 14-year-old Ultimate Universe, debuted in April from the creative team of Joshua Hale Fialkov and Mario Guevara. The series features only one classic Fantastic Four member in its main cast: Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, joined by Tony Stark (Iron Man), Sam Wilson (Falcon) and Machine Man. The first issue of the series ranked at No. 100 in Diamond's April 2014 chart.

The original "Fantastic Four" #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby debuted in 1961, and is widely considered the start of the current, 50-plus year-old era of Marvel Comics and continuity. If Marvel ultimately ends up not publishing "Fantastic Four" for an extended period of time, history indicates the title's eventual return is nearly inevitable, most likely sooner rather than later. Marvel went nine months without a "Fantastic Four" title in 2011, while the "FF" series took its place. Fox's next "Fantastic Four" film is scheduled for release on June 19, 2015.

Marvel declined comment to CBR on this matter. On Tumblr, Marvel senior vice president of publishing Tom Brevoort responded to a fan inquiry on the issue, writing, "My denying rumors isn’t likely to keep anybody who’s prone to paranoia from panicking. But really, does this even seem remotely plausible to people? (Uhh -- yeah it does.) Does it make any sense? Folks have a very strange idea as to the way a business is run."

SOURCE: "Fantastic Four" May Live On-Screen, Disappear From Comics - Comic Book Resources

 

[satam55]

On Thursday, Bleeding Cool published a report citing "a Marvel source" that Marvel plans to put current ongoing series "Fantastic Four" and "Ultimate FF" "on hold." The reason for this, according to the article, was that the "high echelons" of Marvel believed that continuing to promote the property would support or strengthen 20th Century Fox's films -- Fox has long held the live-action license to both Fantastic Four and the X-Men -- at the expense of Marvel Studios, owned and operated by Marvel's parent company, Disney.

CBR cannot confirm the exact future of "Fantastic Four" and "Ultimate FF," but has confirmed with multiple industry sources speaking on the condition of anonymity that a hiatus for the property is planned, at least as of recently. Plans can change, something that's potentially more likely now that the situation has been made public. The Fantastic Four characters are said to continue appearing in other Marvel titles, just not in a specifically branded "Fantastic Four" series.

In a second report published on Friday, Bleeding Cool stated the initiative stems from Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter. Additionally, Bleeding Cool published a purported instruction sheet distributed to sketch card artists working on a "Marvel 75th Anniversary" trading card set. The sheet listed the following characters as off-limits: the main Fantastic Four of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Thing and Human Torch; along with associated characters Doctor Doom, Galactus, Silver Surfer, The Watcher and Skrulls.


While Fox also controls the live-action rights to the X-Men -- the latest film in the studio's franchise, "X-Men: Days of Future Past," opened last weekend to $111 million over four days -- Marvel continues to publish a large line of X-titles. The books are still strong sellers -- "All-New X-Men" appeared twice in the Top 20 for April, with "Uncanny X-Men," "Amazing X-Men," "X-Men" and "Wolverine and the X-Men" all in the Top 60 -- so it's possible continued success has spared the line from being specifically targeted. Bleeding Cool's initial report stated that the X-Men comics are "no longer the focus of internal promotion," unless it's in tandem with the Avengers, as in upcoming Marvel event "AXIS."

Spider-Man is also not under Marvel Studios' purview, having long been a live-action Sony Pictures property. Spider-Man does not appear to be affected by these decisions -- just last month, the character starred in the highly touted "Amazing Spider-Man" relaunch, which received more than 500,000 estimated initial retailer orders -- something that's generally credited to a better relationship between Marvel and Sony than Marvel and Fox. Spider-Man also currently stars on the popular Disney XD animated series "Ultimate Spider-Man," produced in-house by Marvel.

The current "Fantastic Four" series launched this past February with a new #1, from the creative team of James Robinson and Leonard Kirk. The book debuted at No. 7 in Diamond's monthly estimated sales charts for February 2014, dropping to No. 44 in Marvel and No. 60 in April -- still placing it ahead of Marvel series including "Captain America," "Iron Man," "Avengers World," X-Force" and "All New Ghost Rider."

"Ultimate FF," set in Marvel's 14-year-old Ultimate Universe, debuted in April from the creative team of Joshua Hale Fialkov and Mario Guevara. The series features only one classic Fantastic Four member in its main cast: Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, joined by Tony Stark (Iron Man), Sam Wilson (Falcon) and Machine Man. The first issue of the series ranked at No. 100 in Diamond's April 2014 chart.

The original "Fantastic Four" #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby debuted in 1961, and is widely considered the start of the current, 50-plus year-old era of Marvel Comics and continuity. If Marvel ultimately ends up not publishing "Fantastic Four" for an extended period of time, history indicates the title's eventual return is nearly inevitable, most likely sooner rather than later. Marvel went nine months without a "Fantastic Four" title in 2011, while the "FF" series took its place. Fox's next "Fantastic Four" film is scheduled for release on June 19, 2015.

Marvel declined comment to CBR on this matter. On Tumblr, Marvel senior vice president of publishing Tom Brevoort responded to a fan inquiry on the issue, writing, "My denying rumors isn’t likely to keep anybody who’s prone to paranoia from panicking. But really, does this even seem remotely plausible to people? (Uhh -- yeah it does.) Does it make any sense? Folks have a very strange idea as to the way a business is run."

SOURCE: "Fantastic Four" May Live On-Screen, Disappear From Comics - Comic Book Resources

What a horrible thread title!

 

[Swiggy]

Putting a hold on comics to freeze a studio's chance to cash in on a potential movement. Dem tactics

 

[ORDER_66]

THEY WANT THEIR shyt BACK LIKE.... RIGHT NOW!

 

[tr2k]

What a horrible thread title!

the title of the article threw me off
"Fantastic Four" May Live On-Screen, Disappear From Comics"

 

[Mook]

Putting a hold on comics to freeze a studio's chance to cash in on a potential movement. Dem tactics

top comic book sales is like 100k for a book, this is the dumbest decision ever. No one cares but people who actually read it

 

[Spidey Man]

Won't happen. This is like DC not publishing Superman because they don't want to pay royalties to Siegel and shuster's estates.

Marvel was built on the fantastic four, and alienating a large chunk of an already niche audience is a horrible move.

 

[ORDER_66]

Marvel is trying to starve them out... either they want a bigger cut or they want their shyt back its underhanded tactics but smart...

 

[duncanthetall]

Either way, a Fantastic Four flick isn't going to do the type of number studios almost expect from superhero films without it being, like....a great film. Which it pretty much is destined to not be under Fox. Yeah, people know the name "Fantastic Four", but people really don't know shyt about them. Nor are they really actually that interesting of characters at face value, so its hard to sell that to audiences as well. I dunno. Just feel like whatever FF film they throw out is destined to flop.

 

[Dillah810]

Another article on the situation

When a bankrupt Marvel sold the films rights to some of its most popular and iconic characters to various movie studios in the ’90s, no one saw the Marvel Studios renaissance coming. Now, over a decade later, Marvel is an arm in the Disney machine (Hail Hydra!) and producing its own popular and successful movies, while 20th Century Fox continues to hold the rights to the ‘X-Men’ and the ‘Fantastic Four‘ movies. There have been rumors of animosity between Fox and Marvel for some time, but recent events suggest that their conflict has come to a head.

If the word on the internet is to believed, Marvel is celebrating the filming of Fox’s ‘Fantastic Four’ reboot by completely stripping the characters from their comic book pages.

According to a report at Bleeding Cool, Marvel has already pulled all Fantastic Four art down at their offices and is ordering artists to not draw the team or any of its associated characters on external projects. Plus, the team is not making an appearance on any of the company’s “75th Anniversary” project art, despite being the first Marvel superhero team and the foundation of modern comic book superheroes in general.

And, of course, every ‘Fantastic Four’ Marvel comic is now rumored to be facing cancellation.

Here’s an email that Bleeding Cool received from an anonymous artist:

I do a number of sketch card projects for Upper Deck and Rittenhouse using Marvel characters. The most recent projects from both companies, one billed as Marvel 75th Anniversary, gave specific guidelines to NOT use any FF characters or supporting cast such as Dr Doom, Galactus, Surfer, Skrulls etc…
They have also posted a picture of the official memo telling artists that images of Fantastic Four characters would be rejected, including the following edict, directly from Marvel:

All Marvel characters related to Fantastic Four are now off-limits and will be immediately rejected by Marvel.​

This is a weird story because it represents corporate bickering at its most petty. In the end, the only people being hurt here are the fans, both young and old, who love these characters and to see more of them. Presumably, Marvel is afraid that their comics will unintentionally help Fox, but they seemingly fail to see that the other end of the spectrum: a ‘Fantastic Four’ movie could still help increase comic and merchandise sales on their end. (X-Men comics will proceed because it’s believed the characters are too popular too ignore.)

Then again, we’re not Disney accountants and for all we know, there’s more method to this madness than meets the eye. Or, it could all be Marvel/Disney being angry over Fox clinging to this property despite their failure to do anything interesting with it over the past decade (which the new movie will hopefully rectify). In any case, it feels wrong that Marvel is hiding the characters who built the company’s foundation. The Avengers wouldn’t exit without these four and while they may not be the most popular characters out there, they’re undeniably among the most important.

‘Fantastic Four’ is currently filming and scheduled to hit theaters on June 19, 2015.

Has Marvel Comics Declared War on the ‘Fantastic Four’ Movie?

Pretty petty on Marvel's side. I would think the movie would spark interest in the comic if the movie does well. I know DOFP has me back interested in X-Men comics.

 

[ORDER_66]

Dammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnn...

 

[Jello Biafra]

On Bleeding Cool they released a letter from Marvel telling artists for outside projects for companies like Upper Deck that they couldn't use FF characters:

Artists Given Specific Instructions Not To Use Fantastic Four Characters (UPDATE) - Bleeding Cool Comic Book, Movies and TV News and Rumors

 

[Cobratron]

top comic book sales is like 100k for a book, this is the dumbest decision ever. No one cares but people who actually read it

Yep. Not that FF are huge sellers but dropping their books will hurt Marvel sales and fan opinion more than it's going to hurt the Fox movies. In fact, it's not going to hurt the Fox movies at all. Pretty ridiculous.

Stop selling 25k copies a month of your comic to stick it to the $600+ million franchise, brehs.

 

[HipHopStan]

I remember back in 2012, Fox asked Marvel if they could have more time in trying to reboot Daredevil, and Marvel was like "Sure...give us Galactus and the Silver Surfer. " Fox then gave up the rights to Daredevil. I think they want Galactus for an Avengers sequel.

 

[thaKEAF]

Seems stupid on Marvels part. Most of the people who go see these movies don't even fukk with comics so they're only hurting their own sales and the actual FF fans.