The first thing Ronan did when he came to New York was to learn about the specific situation of Marvel Comics, and although Robert Lee often called him to report it, it was still very necessary to talk about it in person.

In the living room of the hotel suite, Robert summed up the experience and said to Ronan: "The situation at Marvel is more dire and chaotic than we first knew in Los Angeles. ”

Ronan sat down on the couch steadily: "Let's talk about it carefully." ”

Relativity Entertainment has been in contact with Marvel Comics for a long time, and Robert has always been a representative: "Since the mid-to-late 1980s, Marvel has been affected by the relatively sluggish market environment of the comic book industry as a whole, and has begun to encounter various difficulties. At that time, Marvel's leader Ron Perelman could only publish the rights to his characters in order to raise money. ”

"Is our target copyright still on Marvel?" Ronan asked with concern.

Robert replied, "Some of them are there, and some of them have been sold by Marvel." ”

Ronan frowned: "In addition to Spider-Man and other characters, Marvel has sold others? Let's talk about it all." ”

Robert detailed: "As early as 1985, Marvel sold Spider-Man to Cannon Pictures, and later Menachem Gran, the chairman of Cannon Pictures, joined Twentieth Century Fox, and by the way, transferred the rights of Spider-Man to Twentieth Century Fox. ”

These circumstances were somewhat unexpected by Ronan, who thought that the rights to Spider-Man had always been in the hands of Sony Columbia.

Sure enough, Marvel was in a bad situation before the birth of "Iron Man", and its own sons kept changing hands, but there was nothing they could do.

Robert continued: "Later Gran sold the rights to the Spider-Man adaptation to Columbia Pictures, ready for James Cameron to do the filming, and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Doctor Octopus. But MGM bought some of the assets of Twentieth Century Fox, including the rights to Spider-Man, but Columbia Pictures insisted that the rights should belong to them, and the end result was that Columbia Pictures got the rights to Spider-Man. ”

"Marvel's way of selling the rights is to package and sell other characters that are intuitively related to the hero characters, and all Sony Entertainment also has the rights to other comic book characters related to Spider-Man, such as Venom, Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Mysterio, etc. ”

Ronan had learned about the sales model of manga copyright before, and said: "This is the conventional authorization method of comic book movie copyright, and the film company can't just buy one character, otherwise the movie will not be able to be made." ”

He sighed: "Spider-Man live-action movie, Sony Columbia Pictures has already set up a project, and we can't get the copyright of Little Spider." ”

This is something that can't be helped, before Ronan came to Los Angeles, the rights of many heroes were sold by the difficult Marvel to raise funds.

Before the advent of the "Spider-Man" movie, Marvel's routine operation was: selling sons for lack of money, and giving priority to selling valuable sons.

It's not that I don't want to sell my godsons, but my godsons are too famous, they are not easy to sell, and they can't sell at a high price.

"Marvel was unhappy with Sony Columbia's Spider-Man film adaptation, specifically changing some of Peter Parker's settings. Robert shrugged: "But the son who was sold, it's not up to them to decide." ”

He continued the topic just now: "The Hulk was bought by Universal Pictures back in 1990, but Universal Pictures has doubts about superhero movies and has not made film adaptations. ”

Ronan knows that this is a normal situation, and now is not ten years from now, and superhero movies are just niche films in most people's minds.

In Robert's introduction, Ronan learns that Universal Pictures not only bought the Hulk, but also holds Namor's film rights.

Namor is a Marvel version of Atlantean, somewhat similar to Aquaman.

"And the X-Men. Robert's face was full of regret because it was difficult to get the relevant rights: "In 1994, Marvel sold the rights to the X-Men to Twentieth Century Fox. From the mid-nineties onwards, Marvel was in a very bad situation, so the rights began to sell more thoroughly, and Twentieth Century Fox not only owned the rights to all X-Men characters in perpetuity, but also completely owned the conceptual rights to the word mutant, and could expand any X-Men comic book character. ”

I don't know why, a sentence from the other side of the Pacific Ocean suddenly flashed in Ronan's mind: The cub sells Ye Tian's heart is not painful.

Ronan asked, "What about the Fantastic Four?"

Robert's tone was filled with regret that he couldn't hide: "Marvel sold the rights to the Fantastic Four to Constantine Pictures in 1986. ”

"Konstantin in Germany?" Ronan's mind instantly came to life, if the copyright was in Konstantin's hands, it was possible to get it.

But Robert's words disappointed him again: "In '99, Constantine Pictures sold the Fantastic Four to Twentieth Century Fox. ”

Ronan shook his head, what fell into the hands of the six major companies would be difficult to dig out.

A lot of things are not that he doesn't want to make a move, but that he can't do it.

When Ronan came to Los Angeles, Marvel sold his own sons who could sell for a price, including Iron Man!

This is the last thing Ronan wants to hear.

"In 1990, after Marvel sold the Hulk to Universal Pictures, they sold Iron Man-related characters to Universal Pictures. ”

Robert glanced at Ronan, this is the list Ronan gave him, all Marvel character copyrights ranked first, but things far exceeded the expectations of the two: "In 1996, Twentieth Century Fox bought the rights to Iron Man from Universal. In 1999, the rights of Iron Man were resold to New Line Pictures. ”

Ronan was almost speechless when he heard what happened to Iron Man, Tony Stark's fate turned out to be so bumpy.

Poor child, my father doesn't hurt, and my uncle doesn't love me.

But this situation is understandable when you think about it, after all, strictly speaking, Iron Man can only be regarded as a second-tier hero in Marvel Comics, and before the movie appeared, his influence was not as good as Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Hulk, which were Marvel's first-line heroes.

"None of these three companies took Iron Man seriously. Robert's words also prove this: "I didn't have the idea of making a movie, and it is said that after New Line Pictures bought the copyright, it was determined that it was a burden, and once contacted Marvel Comics and asked them if they wanted to take back the copyright." ”

Reclaiming rights is certainly not free, Robert said: "Marvel's finances are so bad that it can't raise enough money at all, and it's ...... They also don't pay much attention to Iron Man. ”

The copyright ownership of the truly well-known characters in Marvel Comics is complicated, and Marvel not only sold its sons, but also allowed the people who sold them to resell it back and forth.

Ronan asked a little strangely: "These companies are reselling copyrights back and forth, and Marvel has no opinion?"

If it were his work, the copyright would have been resold like this, and it would have been angry a long time ago.

"Marvel not only has no opinion, but is happy to see it. Robert's words also refreshed Ronan's perception of Marvel: "For every copyright transaction, Marvel can extract 10% of the copyright fee, so ......"

Ronan was speechless for a moment, and after a long while, he asked, "Has Marvel fallen to this point?"

Robert said, "Yes. ”

He then gave Ronan a detailed explanation.

Since the mid-to-late 80s, the North American comic market has been in sharp decline, and in the 90s, it was facing a cold period, and the annual output value of the entire comic publishing industry, including peripheral industries, fell to less than 400 million US dollars.

Marvel is one of the three major comic book companies in North America, and despite selling so many pro-sons, it still has not escaped its fate.

In 1996, Marvel struggled for power and finally filed for bankruptcy, and the huge comic book empire faced collapse.

But in 1997, Avi Arad counterattacked and became the new chairman and CEO of Marvel, which also temporarily dragged Marvel's slide into the abyss.

According to Robert, Avi Arad is a very capable person.

Avi Arad was not a senior Marvel executive, he once invested in a peripheral toy manufacturer, and later the peripheral manufacturer was acquired by Marvel, Avi Arad became one of the many minority shareholders of Marvel, after Marvel filed for bankruptcy, Avi Arad saw an opportunity to show his skills in order to borrow money from banks and unite with other institutions, and took Marvel into his pocket and became the new CEO.

Of course, Avi-Arad does not have a lot of shares, only 10 percent, but it is enough to become the largest individual shareholder.

It's a pity that this hasn't really changed Marvel's situation, and the debt borrowed by Avi Arad has naturally been passed on to Marvel, and Marvel has been struggling in the past two years.

"Let's put it this way, now Marvel is so poor that almost the entire Avengers are ready to be sold. Robert also felt a little shocked, it seems that the huge comic book empire is actually strong outside, and it may collapse at some point: "This year, in order to raise funds, Marvel almost reached an agreement with Artisan Pictures, but fortunately we intervened. ”

On the phone call before, Ronan had heard Robert talk about it.

Marvel has several huge debts that will mature at the end of this year, and it will be quite troublesome if they are not returned, and they really can't raise funds, so Marvel can only pay attention to its sons again.

At present, the only thing that Marvel can really exchange funds to solve operational problems is copyright.

When Robert came to New York, Marvel had just approached Artisan Pictures, and Marvel planned to package and sell the film and television rights including more than a dozen characters such as Captain America, Black Panther, Black Widow, Deadpool, Iron Fist, Ant-Man, Punisher, Humanoid, Vampire Morbius, and Long Shot to Artisan Pictures.

But Artisan Pictures did not reach any cooperation with Marvel in the end, in which Robert played a key role.

How Robert squeezed out Artisan Pictures, Ronan didn't do a detailed understanding, and there is no need to pay special attention, because the result is very good.

The withdrawal of Artisan Pictures has led to Marvel having no other way in a short period of time but to negotiate a copyright deal with Relativity Entertainment.

(The copyrights sold by Marvel are real, Marvel's crisis is not only a problem brought about by the comic industry, but also a power struggle between high-level leaders, interested friends can check it online, a super tearing war dominated by interests)