Marvel's headquarters is in New York, on Fifth Avenue, which is considered a place where New York has every inch of land.

If you put it now, the value of such a piece of land is unimaginable. Fortunately, when Marvel chose the location of its headquarters, there was no serious real estate industry in the United States at that time, and the land price was as cheap as cabbage, so Marvel easily got this land at that time. Decades later, it has become one of the most important areas in New York.

Before Zhou Fangyuan came, he had already contacted the president of Marvel, a balding middle-aged man, through Cameron.

The two sides met for a while, and then Zhou Fangyuan put forward his intentions.

"Buying the rights to Marvel superheroes?"

The middle-aged man on the other side frowned.

Cameron didn't talk to him so much on the phone, except that there was a young man who wanted to meet him and talk about some business.

When he learned that the person who applied for the meeting was the director of the ghost shadow record, the Chinese "chou", who has recently become famous in the United States, the middle-aged man agreed without thinking about it. At the same time, he was also curious, what did the other party want to talk about business with him? Now he knows, but what he didn't expect was that the other party actually fell in love with the superhero copyright in the hands of Marvel.

Superheroes are the foundation of Marvel, and Marvel has launched comics to create superheroes one after another.

In April 1939, the company created the world's first mutant superhero Namor on the inaugural issue of the movie comic book weekly, which was Marvel's first superhero, he was half a year earlier than the company's establishment, and in October of the same year, Marvel created the world's first cyborg superhero in the first issue of Marvel Comics, the first generation of Thunderbolt, and introduced Namor into it, this dual cooperation of water and fire, played the first punch in Marvel history. Today, Marvel has Spider-Man, Wolverine, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain Marvel, Deadpool, Ant-Man, Wasp, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Daredevil, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Punisher, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Tekken, Ghost Rider, Blade, Barbarian Conan and other superheroes, and Avengers, Men's Police, Fantastic Four, Guardians of the Galaxy, S.H.I.E.L.D., Defenders of the Defenders, Inhumans, Illuminati and other superhero teams, attacking more than 5,000 superheroes.

That's a pretty scary number, but unfortunately, most of the superheroes aren't famous, and few are really famous.

And even these are already famous, and there are not many copyrights that are still in the hands of Marvel.

As early as the 80s and 90s of the last century, Marvel has begun to become a seller, and the specific reason is very simple: money!

Before Zhou Fangyuan's rebirth, superhero movies roughly showed a three-legged trend, with Marvel, Fox, and Sony respectively sitting on the copyright of the three most popular superhero series of movies at the moment, Avengers Men and Spider-Man. This is also the golden sign of the three companies at hand, and it is the competitive weight of each other's box office war. In fact, all three of these series used to belong to Marvel and were created by Marvel.

Since the 90s of the 0th century, Marvel has sold the film rights of its heroes to various film companies, for the simple reason that money is to blame. Marvel has been suffering from an economic crisis in the 90s, and the company's poor Jingle is facing the danger of bankruptcy, and selling the film rights of its works is the best way to protect itself. After all, once a work is made into a movie, no matter whether the film loses money at the box office or earns, Marvel has a share, and having money is king. Secondly, the sale of copyright is also the wish of Stan Lee, a comic book artist and creator of most of Marvel's superhero characters, who is now making frequent cameos in superhero movies, has been planning to put these heroes on the big screen since the 70s of the 0th century, but at that time, Marvel's own economic strength did not allow it, and the film technology was not mature enough.

In this way, between 1986 and 1996, most of Marvel's superheroes were bought by various film companies, especially Sony bought the copyright of Spider-Man Venom, and Fox bought the copyright of Warriors, Fantastic Four, Deadpool, etc., Marvel survived the difficult and sad poor years, and also caused the current future film copyright to be scattered in various companies, and superheroes cannot form a team.

So how long will Marvel sell the rights to Spider-Man to Sony? When will it expire and return it to Marvel? The answer is far away.

In 1999, Marvel and Sony had a very interesting film rights deal with Spider-Man, and the two parties signed a five-year contract. And this 5-year period does not refer to the time zone from 1999 to 004, but to the fact that as long as there are Spider-Man movies released within 5 years, it will be fine. For example, Sam Raimi's version of Spider-Man was released in 00, Spider-Man in 004 two years later, and Spider-Man 3 in 007 three years later, and the release of each film was kept within 5 years, so it did not violate the terms of the contract.

And Mark Webb's reboot of the new version of the amazing Spider-Man was released in 01, and it is exactly at the threshold of the 5-year deadline from Spider-Man 3.

In 1994, Marvel and Foss's film rights to the Men of War were on a seven-year contract.

Men of Arms is the highlight of Marvel Comics, with many characters and a full and complex story. Fox then launched four works in 000, 003, 006, and 011, including Men of War 3: Last Fight: Lesson 1, and in 014, the new Combat Police: Reversal of the Future, and Combat: Apocalypse is set for 016, it is not difficult to see from here that Fox is also carefully fulfilling his promises, and no one wants to lose this fragrant food. Fox also launched a spin-off Wolverine in 009 and Wolverine in 013, although the sequel had a bad reputation, for the company, just make money.

Regarding copyright, there is also a small story, Fox currently owns and is about to restart the Fantastic Four series, which was purchased by Constantine Film in Germany in the 80s, but until the copyright is about to expire in 199, there is no related film coming out, Constantine Pictures in order to keep the copyright of the Fantastic Four, with the help of Roger Coman, the king of American B-grade films, hired the American B-grade film director Olizasson to use 5 days to rush to produce the first Fantastic Four in film history, and it is rumored that the crew had to work continuously for more than 0 hours a day。 Tragically, the film never had a chance to be released in theaters at all, and became a victim of Konstantin to keep the copyright. Subsequently, Konstantin reached a cooperation agreement with Fox and created the Fantastic Four directed by Tim Storey in 005, but the reputation was not satisfactory.

Of course, there is another way for Marvel to take back the copyright, which is to let the film company choose to give it up automatically.

There are also many such cases, such as the Hulk directed by Ang Lee, which will be released in 03, and the word-of-mouth box office will be a double failure, which makes Universal Pictures, which produces and distributes this film, very annoyed, forget it, I can't shoot this monster well, and I returned the copyright to Marvel in a fit of anger. In the same situation, in the 13 years of the original plane, Marvel successfully recovered the copyright of the Daredevil Blade Warrior Soul Chariot Punisher. As a result, many fans are also praying that one day, Sony's Spider-Man series will fail miserably at the box office, and Spider-Man will be able to reunite with the Avengers. However, although the copyright of Spider-Man did not return in the later period, it was authorized by Sony, so in Captain America 3 and Avengers 3, there was a little spider.

Looking at the superheroes who have now sold their copyrights, it can be said that among the mainstream heroes, they can be regarded as quite scattered.

In terms of Marvel, it owns the copyright of superheroes such as the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Punisher, Daredevil Man, Soul Chariot, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Blade, etc., and there are a large number of superheroes that have not been developed and are not famous. After all, comic book adaptations are mainly about making money from fans, and only with a good reputation can we attract more audiences. Of course, the success of the later Avengers and the Marvel Cinematic Universe did give Marvel the ability to promote such unknown heroes and actively attract more audiences, but as far as this is concerned, Marvel has no ability to do this at all, and they themselves do not have the ability to make movies.

In terms of Fox, there are now a large number of superhero copyrights such as Warriors, Fantastic Four, Cable Man, Deadpool, Silver Surfer, etc., among which Troops are undoubtedly the most important, there are many mutants in Sentropol, and they are also famous, as long as they make good use of this IP, the value that can be created in the end will definitely not be lower than that of the Avengers.

On the Sony side, Spider-Man, Venom, Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Doctor Lizard, Sandman, Vulture, Mystic Mage, Hunter Kraven, Black Cat, Silver Sable, Electric Man, Rhino Man, etc., are also superheroes familiar to the audience, among which Spider-Man is the most famous, and he alone can be on par with the Troops.

In the end, Universal has Namor and Hulk, and Lionsgate has a humanoid.

In short, Marvel was not distressed at all when selling the copyright, so now Zhou Fangyuan proposed to buy the copyright of the superhero, and the general Nianren on the other side only frowned and did not directly refuse.

"I wonder how much Mr. Chou is going to pay for which superhero rights?"

"This, you'll have to wait for me to take a look at your hero library, I'm still a little shallow in my hands. ”

Zhou Fangyuan said with a smile.

Which heroes does he want to buy? Quite simply, those are the most famous heroes of Marvel in the future, and he will buy those.

Zhou Fangyuan's long-term plan is very simple, he wants to eat Disney, and then eat Marvel through Disney, and finally follow Disney's original route to develop and launch the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and then create a super giant IP in one fell swoop. However, this plan cannot be done in a short time, so he will have to wait a few years. But before that, he could think of something else. And a big guy like Disney, if Zhou Fangyuan still wants to use the original method to eat it whole, it is unlikely, he can control it at most, and it is already unbelievable.

But given his nationality, it is inevitable that there will be some problems that no one wants to see. Although this possibility is not high, who hasn't been a little precautionary? Can't he really wait for things to fall on his head before he knows to make amends? Zhou Fangyuan is not stupid, he knows what it means to take precautions. So before buying Disney and then buying Marvel, he had to snap up the rights to a batch of Marvel's superheroes. After all, the first real superhero movie, that is, the first Spider-Man, will not be released for two years.

Now Universal has just bought the rights, and even if there is a shooting plan, it is just a plan, and it has not really started to act.

The market is uncertain about the future of superhero movies, and major companies are also holding the attitude of giving it a try, and this is when it is easiest to buy a well-known superhero.

Before this IP series is completely cultivated, you can first make some separate movies to cultivate the market, and at the same time you can use them to make some money, why not? After the plan is really successful in the future, he can also divide the copyright into two parts, a large number of copyrights that are not well-known and of completely unknown value, which belong to Disney. And some valuable heroes who already have high development value, the copyright is in their own hands. When the time comes, it will just be a change of left hand for right hand, and it will be nothing more than a matter of paying some taxes, which is not a big problem. On the contrary, if there is really a situation that no one wants to see, the copyright is also in Zhou Fangyuan's hands, and he will not be easily pinched by others.

So in the end, Zhou Fangyuan bought the copyright of superheroes such as the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Quicksilver, Red Witch, Punisher, Daredevil Man, Soul Chariot, Black Panther, Doctor Strange, Blade, Inhumans, Eternals and other superheroes from Marvel, among them, just one Avengers contains a large number of superheroes, definitely not only those shown in the movie. The same is true for the Guardians of the Galaxy, these two teams cost him a full 100 million. The contract signed is also seven years, which is considered a relatively lenient treaty.

At the same time, Cameron, under the request of Zhou Fangyuan, began to visit companies such as Universal, Fox and Sony to discuss the transfer of copyright. Universal agreed quite happily, and spent 20 million to buy the two superheroes under his command. Fox is a little more troublesome, because the number itself is relatively large, you must know that the Warriors are a super large team, Cameron talked back and forth four or five times, and finally bought all the superheroes in Fox's hands at a price of 1.3 billion. In this way, 500 million of the funds in Zhou Fangyuan's hands have been thrown out, and only 1.5 billion of available funds are left.

However, there are relatively few superheroes on Sony's side, and if you buy them, the money should be enough.

But what made Zhou Fangyuan a little surprised was that Sony actually rejected his acquisition request, even if Zhou Fangyuan was willing to pay a price of 1.5 billion, they didn't agree at all, Cameron went to contact, the other party was very polite, but the attitude was very tough, and said that they were ready to start filming the first part of Spider-Man, all the preparations have been completed, and it is absolutely impossible to sell the copyright, Zhou Fangyuan doesn't even think about it.

At this moment, Zhou Fangyuan was a little depressed.