After MADAME WEB, Marvel Could SUE SONY for the Rights to SPIDER-MAN

he was in the Amazon with my mom when she was researching spiders right before she died hey welcome back to screen Crush I'm Ryan ER guys we have to talk about the aftershocks of Madame Webb the movie was beyond a bomb theater owners were actually saying that they could literally track people returning their tickets after the reviews came out the movie might end up being a camp Masterpiece you watch cuz it's so bad it's good but like for casual Marvel fans this has painted the Marvel Brand the damage is so bad it has us thinking could Marvel actually Sue Sony over how bad madame Webb is later I'm going to bring on a friend of the channel and lawyer Mike Mella to discuss how all this could really play out wait a minute why would Marvel want to sue Cy well buddy there have been reports for a while now that Marvel and Sony are disagreeing over Spider-Man's future in the fourth Tom Holland movie now look much about this new dispute is unknown right now but it's becoming increasingly clear that Sony is not good at making Standalone Spider-Man movies and that they are overall harming the Marvel Brand now Marvel has been trying to repurchase Spider-Man from Sony for years and with the news of this latest spat fans are going to be wondering what it's going to take for Sony to finally cave and let the wall crawler go home to his own universe so today we're going to ask what would happen if Marvel push the envelope by suing Sony over the Spider-Man IP and if Marvel sues would they have a case would they be successful now you probably already know a bit about the history between wa I don't understand I thought Marvel earned Spider-Man okay well look a lot of you probably already know about the sword history between Sony and Marvel but just in case here's a quick recap of how we got to this very messy place in the 1990s the comic book industry hit a pretty big slump causing Marvel to actually file for bankruptcy and then Marvel started selling off the film and television rights of their most popular characters including Spider-Man Sony bought the exclusive rights to make Spider-Man movies and TV shows wow I mean Spider-Man's pretty popular that must have cost them a fortune actually no Marvel was desperate for cash kind of like if you've ever had to pawn your Comics to pay your rent all I got is this 20 to the rest of the week ah sorry doesn't pay the rent so Marvel sold the film in TV rides for Spider-Man to Sony for only $7 million 7 million in 1999 money that must have been a gazillion dollars n man that may sound like a lot of money to you and me but for a major movie studio like Sony Pictures it was a drop in the bucket even adjusted for inflation by today's dollars Sony only had to pay a little over $13 million for the right to control and profit from every Spider-Man movie and TV project forever with a few requirements that we're going to talk about later you got more than you gave and I wanted what I got this deal applied to not only Peter Parker Spider-Man but also to more than 900 Spider-Man adjacent characters or like Venom and morbius and Madam web that's right high five if I can editorialize a little bit here it does seem like making Spider-Man adjacent films that stretch out the IP are becoming like an addiction for Sony and I can relate I have struggled with a variety of oral fixation habits for years like stress eating or just like constantly snacking on sweets or you do that like a sweet tooth don't you I do I do like a sweet tooth thanks Doug but now I've replaced my bad gross habits with a positive one by switching to fume they're the sponsor of this video oh is that a vape no man this is not a vape it is not electronic and it does not have pods filled with potentially harmful chemicals instead it has these plant-based cores that are infused with natural flavors and this creates natural flavored air my favorite flavor is crisp mint and it even freshens my breath oh yeah your smell great thanks man you you smell great too I really appreciate the compliment you see fume uses plants and Behavioral Science to swap about your negative habit for a positive one it's a perfect way to change your life plus it has adjustable air flow and is designed with movable parts and magnets for fidgeting giving your fingers a lot to do which is really helpful for calming my anxiety because you are anxious all the time indeed I am sir indeed I am they also just launch the fume base it is a Sleek magnetic stand to rest your fume on so you never lose track of it you see guys fume makes switching easy and even fun they have thousands of five-star reviews from there more than 150,000 customers who have used fume to change their lives and switched when other Solutions just didn't work so head to tri.com screencrush and use the code screen Crush to get 10% off your journey pack today the journey pack comes with your choice of three or six unique cores and everything you need to finally be free of your bad habit that's TR f.com and use the code screen Crush to save an additional 10% off your order today now back to the history of Spider-Man and Sony so in the early 2000 Sony began making Spider-Man movies and the first few were really great but as the years went on the movies got worse I'm going to kill the light everyone in this city is going to know how it feels to live in my world at the same time Marvel Studios was formed and they set a new industry standard for what a great superhero movie could be and how much they could gross Sony's failures combined with the mcu's historic success motivated Sony to negotiate a sharing agreement with Marvel in 2015 whereby Marvel can include Spider-Man in the MCU movies but Marvel would only get to keep 5% of the initial box office returns so after releasing home coming in far from home with by the way far from home being the first Spider-Man movie to ever gross over a billion dollars Marvel felt like they had breathed new life into the character and that the 5% they were receiving was not enough where's the money Sony so Marvel proposed changing the terms of the deal so both Studios would receive a 50/50 split of the profits Sony did not like this idea and rather than renegotiate Sony canceled the deal entirely now you remember here on the channel we were outraged all fans were outraged over the news that Tom Holland Spider-Man would no longer be in MCU movies and we were not quiet about that we actually made a whole video about how much it sucks now in response to the backlash Sony decided to return to the negotiating table and a new sharing agreement was executed giving Marvel Studios 25% of the profits so this deal is what allowed Marvel Studios to make no way home a film that not only grossed over a billion dollars again but epitomized what can happen when a filmmaker has access to a broad catalog of past work no way home wasn't only a good Spider-Man movie but also a showcase to celebrate the Sony Spider-Man movies and characters of the 2000s and 2010s it demonstrated that great things can happen when these two Studios play nice and work together sounds okay then what's the problem well now they are not working so well together new reports out of Hollywood are saying that Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman is pushing Kevin feige to speed up the production and release of the mcu's fourth Spider-Man film and demanding that fige bring back director John Watts even though Marvel wants to go in a different creative Direction reportedly Sony wants to bring back Toby and Andrew for a kind of live-action spiderverse while Marvel wants a street level movie where Spider-Man and Daredevil fight the Kingpin these rumors ring kind of true to me because Sony has shown in the past that they are willing to overstuff a Spider-Man movie with too many characters it also makes sense that they would want to try to repeat the success of Spider-Man no way home in the end of the spiderverse films and reportedly the failure of Madam Webb has Sony panicking and they are desperate for a hit Sony wanted their own Cinematic Universe but I think a bunch of guys like us should team up and do some good but now they have to realize that they need Marvel for these films to be successful and this is ironic because the theme of Madame web was with great responsibility great power will come but that's clearly not the case for Sony I mean they own Spider-Man and with that is a great responsibility to make top-notch movies that do that character justice but despite this great responsibility Sony appears powerless to make a decent film without the help of Marvel Studios so why doesn't Kevin figy just tell Sony hey buddy take a hike because Sony still owns the rights to Spider-Man movies and they're not willing to give those rights back without a fight the business relationship between Sony and Marvel has always been strained but now the combination of Sony's movies performing poorly mounting pressure from fans and new disagreements over the business and creative aspects of Spider-Man 4 might finally push this sharing agreement to its breaking point but since Sony will likely refuse to sell Spider-Man back to Marvel could Marvel force a sale could Marvel Sue Sony for misusing and degrading the Spider-Man IP and could they succeed in their goal of reacquiring their star character here to discuss a screen Crush contributor Spider-Man Super Fan and lawyer Mike Mella so Mike tell me what what this is the weirdest deal ever that Marvel has with Sony it seems like Sony just got everything out of it initially can you walk me through how this works and and why Sony has to keep pumping a Spider-Man movie out all the time yeah absolutely so um you know again we don't have an exact copy of what the agreement is between these companies we are kind of piecing together what we can gleam from the internet from reports and from the leaks that came out a few years back then North Korea yeah yeah yeah after the interview oh some of those emails embarrassing very embarrassing and and not great uh not a great look for Marvel or for Sony um one of the things that got a lot of attention at that time was this requirement in the contract they called it a character morality trait requirement um saying that Peter Parker uh couldn't torture people or couldn't murder people and then there were also some other ones in there about what his race or sexual orientation or gender had to be and that Dre some yeah but the the thing that's important in that part of the contract as it applies to this is that it actually gave Marvel the right to enjoin Sony from putting out movies if they violated those character morality traits um and so typically in the law you would have different types of Remedies right so there's Financial remedies you can get damages you can have them pay you money but another type of relief is injunctive relief which basically means go to a court and you ask the judge to issue an order preventing someone from doing something and so marel you're telling me that there was a clause in this contract for per the leaks the 2015 other information we yeah as far as we where if Sony were to make Spider-Man gay or black or torture people and presumably a list of other things that you know I mean the the first two are pretty horrible for that to be mentioned in there but right um that they could actually get financial compensation from Sony for this not only financial compensation but again that injunctive relief that they could prevent Sony from releasing a movie and I should say there too that those specifically applied to Peter Parker's Spider-Man not other variations of Spider-Man okay so Miles moral could okay that's that's better okay so the injunctive relief is really important though because if Marvel can say to Sony you just spent all of this time and money producing this movie you put all this money into the marketing and now we have a court order saying you can't release it they're losing money on that movie although at this point Sony's spider-verse movies all not the animated spiderverse movies but the liveaction movies which are amazing seem to be losing money anyways um but there is a requirement in uh the contract when they bought the rights from Marvel initially in the 9s saying that there's this release schedule you need to release a movie every so often or the rights are going to revert back to Marvel uh we saw the same thing with you know the F Fantastic 4 uh agreement um which then led to you know not the best movies and that's the problem devil as well and and I think all the all those movies had a similar Clause right some of them are different but yeah yeah yeah yeah and that's what then causes Studios to say okay well we need to rush and we need to get a movie out quick or we're going to lose the rights to this character and weirdly enough which is why they made Ry Rush Spider-Man 4 and he walked off the project okay exactly and weirdly enough I think that in Madam web the reason why we have just a a little hint of Peter Parker just a little Peter Parker baby in it is that oh no if Marvel does not bend the knee to Sony and push up the release date of Spider-Man 4 with Tom Holland that they could arguably go back and say oh no we we had Spider-Man in a movie we had him in Madam web he was a baby he didn't have any lines but he was there you know it was like uh it's like a Spider-Man lroy just a hint of Spider-Man but he's in that movie though they never act Spider-Man lroy yeah and that I like lroy though um in that movie though they never actually say his name they have this whole guessing the baby's name and they're really cool about it so that is a whole thing too where imagine we get a situation where Marvel and Sony are in court which I want to touch on in a second if this also how it could work imagine they're in a situation in court where it's like you to they never address the infant in the movie as Peter Parker this could be easily idot the Parker baby we just you know like the fact that it could be in a court of law the highest court in the land the Supreme Court has to hear about Sony V Marvel re Peter Parker in Madam web it's so strange that would be amazing honestly that's that's the whole reason I became a lawyer just for that one specific possible instance so uh Marvel Sony if you're out there and you're listening hit me up uh be the first Supreme Court hearing with a cosplayer with a cosplay audience oh that would be fantastic now if I'm understanding right um they have all these Clauses that Marvel could um you know do an injunction and sue them think we think yeah it seems like and some of them makes sense like you don't want Peter Parker to be an anti-hero bad guy who tortures people that would definitely hurt the brand right M how I mean Madam Webb's a bad movie um oh it's horrible it's awful but in what way would this movie so bad it could Merit a lawsuit for for Marvel or Disney to sue Sony Pictures so um again again we were just talking about the injunctive relief that's for very specific violations if they violate something that's specifically enumerated in the contract then they could get that injunctive relief there's other theories of how Marvel could potentially Sue Sony although these are probably a stretch and a little far-fetched but I will say at the top Disney has the best IP lawyers in the world and if anybody can pull it off it's definitely but here's the stretch of a theory that I want to run by you is that Marvel could say Spider-Man the character of Spider-Man and the brand of Spider-Man is so integral and integrated with the brand of Marvel that in the minds of the general consumer the general movieo audience they are essentially one and the same and don't forget here that while Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man Marvel retains all of the other rights so Marvel still owns the character Spider-Man himself the brand all of those 900 plus inciler characters that are surrounding Spider-Man Marvel still owns them and Marvel still gets all of the merchandising and everything else that comes along with Spider-Man so they could say these movies are harming the Spider-Man brand whereas in the contract before they said we don't want you to damage the character himself like Peter Parker's Integrity here they could say we don't want you to damage the Spider-Man brand because what's happening to a lot of people happened to me and my girlfriend just the other uh week when we went to go and see Madam web I wasn't planning on going to see it in the theaters my girlfriend said I bought us tickets to go and see Madam web because it's a SP Valentine's Day no no this was I think it was the day after Valentine's Day she goes uh you know I know you spider yeah and uh this is a Spider-Man movie so let's go see it and then as we're sitting in the theater is the opening title card with the flip book and then where it slowly says in association with marvel at the top and very tiny letters we both kind of bust out laughing at that I think it was one of her first times actually seeing that on the screen um but that's what's happening is people in the general movie goinging audience are being confused if you don't follow these movies very closely if you're not a super fan and know which characters go in which Universe you're just thinking oh Madam web Spider-man Spider-man Marvel and then go ahead is there a case there for for Consumer confusion consumer confusion is when if I tell me if I'm wrong here it's when you deliberately try to make your brand look like another brand while passing off something like a a Kirkland brand or something like that like a generic right correct so there's there's two kind of uh Avenues or or theories for Relief here one is brand confusion saying uh people want to go and see an MCU movie but instead they went to go and see a Sony movie because they thought that it was part of the MCU the tail end of that is brand dilution so after people leave the theaters from seeing Madame web they go God that sucked that was so bad uh I I don't think I ever want to see another Marvel movie ever again and now they're not going to go and see um you know whatever's the next big Marvel MCU movie that's coming out people who again who are not well-versed in this stuff who don't know the difference between the two Studios um are liable to think that they are all part of one big studio and they might say yeah well uh you know I really loved endgame but I really hated more and I can't I can't swear in my mind how the same people could make these two movies well they didn't but you don't know that and you wouldn't know that because of the way that Sony has been marketing these movies right you remember when the trailer for morbius came out there was the uh mural of Spider-Man yeah M of spider- the word murderer which made people think it was going to follow up far from home because that was before no way home came out oh no so I'm sorry no morbius would have come out in 2022 that's my fault so um yeah that's totally true clearly piggy back off of the end of uh far from home and the Goodwill that had been built up amongst the fans for that movie and then I think Madame web in either on the posters or in the trailers they said something like don't miss the one that connects them all and there was none of that in the movie there was no crossovers there was there wasn't even a post-credit scene there was nothing to connect it we don't even know if it's connected to Venom or morbius like we don't know if it's connected to the other movies within its own Universe let alone other cinematic universes so they they tried to Market it as it's going to connect everything together which ties into the mcu's early slogan it's all connected so there's definitely it sounds like consumer confusion there were the act like there there's a whole thing too where like Dakota Johnson fired her team like right away and there's a lot of speculation that she signed on thinking that she was in the MCU that her agents told her oh you're going to be in a Marvel and they somehow didn't even know the difference yeah so I actually I heard this for the first time on another Channel uh Cosmic Wonder Warren reported that Warren great guy yeah love Warren Great Warren if you're watching come on the show big fan um so apparently uh Dakota Johnson Sydney Sweeney the other actresses in this movie when they heard that they got the role posted some type of announcement about it to their Instagram and tagged Marvel Studios in it so here's the argument for Marvel if the actors in a Sony movie don't know that they're in a Sony movie how is the audience supposed to know I mean it's just it's it's like now Sony's not only trying to trick the fan base they're trying to trick the actors they're trying to say I I suspect you know again I don't know don't sue me Sony um so you've you've outlined a case for potential again we don't know what we're talking about here you know we're just we we're spitballing Theory law theory um you're you've outlined a case for potential brand delution and consumer confusion right right both pretty serious in the corporate world what can it happen how would it happen or even if the lawsuit doesn't have Merit could it still result in Disney getting the rights of Spider-Man back sure so I I do think that this would be quite a stretch um again it'll probably depend heavily upon what are the specific terms in the agreement between Marvel and Sony but the important thing to remember here is Sony owns the right to make these Spider-Man films it's not as if they're licensing it from Marvel and when they make these Tom Holland Spider-Man movies it's actually Sony licensing Spider-Man back to Marvel so it's it's a little bit different usually whoever holds the right the I like the person who holds the right to the IP can uh exclude other people from using their IP and can prevent them from putting out something like a fan-made film or or something of that sort um and it's specifically over the concerns that we just talked about confusion and D U um but here you know Sony actually owns the right to make Spider-Man movies and TV shows and so their uh justifications like they they wouldn't need to defend themselves as much over you know what they do with the character again as long as they're not violating the specific uh character morality traits that were laid out in the contract or that we think are laid out in the contract so uh I don't know that Marvel would ultimately be successful however uh this would be a very big and very involved lawsuit that would take a very long time and if Marvel is arguing that this injunctive relief that they wrote Into the contract for themselves does somehow apply it's not unreasonable to think that while the lawsuit is playing out they're going through Discovery and objections and that whole pre-litigation stage that they could ask the judge for a temporary restraining order saying prevent Sony from releasing any of these movies until this lawsuit is resolved again wow yeah that's assuming that it doesn't immediately get thrown out of court or get dismissed on a 12 B6 motion for failure to State a claim right so remind me to never go up against you in court yeah no I mean I'm not I just kind of know what I'm talking about take the comp keep going like I can sue you right now for having the same mug as me what is this hey this guy not quite yours is a little shinier that's M mine's a little gold I got mine at Disneyland yeah are your gems falling off of yours oh yeah I lost my time Stone entirely yeah lost three of them but I just look at it like it's going back yeah okay um so to answer your question like ultimately I don't think that from a legal standpoint if that's if they're trying to get a judge to order Sony to sell the IP back to Marvel or uh really they would go and get somebody to appraise it and determine what the fair market value of the IP is like a third party independent person and then that would be the sale price um I don't think they would be successful in long run with that however just the threat of litigation or the prospect of their films being enjoined for an extended period of time could motivate Sony to come to the table and sell the IP and I think that if they're going to do it they got to do it soon you got to strike while the iron is hot because if these reports that are coming out are to be believed Sony is panicking right now they're going uh we lost money on morbius WE stupidly re-released it into theaters thinking that the memes online meant that people liked the film uh web abysmal like super low I think it's got like a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes the worst of those movies Fantastic Four yeah I think so yeah right also Lois grossing um again obviously all of the box office numbers for it aren't in but it doesn't look very good Venom 2 made money domestically I think it made money internationally Craven yeah you know and we've talked about this on the channel before if there's one thing you know uh Captain Midnight had this great quote he said if you have who has watched the Spider-Man movie and thought God this would be good if Spider-Man just wasn't in it wasn't in it it's a bad model to begin with for fans right like we don't want to see these movies we feel like they're getting forced down our throats they're deluding the brand let's just say that Sony decides to cut their losses if they can if they know they can make a Spider-Man movie and sell it for a billion dollars even even if they they have to share part of the profits with Marvel like they're doing now what kind of deal would possibly benefit them what what would you realistically see taking shape what would it take for them to come to the table table and sell these rights or transfer them or however the language is back to Marvel so Spider-Man comes home to the MCU right so I don't know if I can put a dollar figure on it because I don't have that kind of insight information into what that IP is actually worth but I got to think it's worth North of100 million uh Sony initially bought the rights for 7 million in 1999 which by today's dollars is what maybe like $14 million you said earlier yeah yeah no matter what they sell it for they're going to be making a huge profit and at this point movies like Madame web Craven and likely Venom 3 are going to be losers for them so at this point you can look at it and say if you're not going to make Spider-Man movies with Spider-Man uh this is really just more of a liability than it is an asset for you why not get rid of it sell it for a massive profit and here's the thing I think the only reason they are hesitant or reluctant to do it is because well one you know it's super valuable it's probably the most recognized ible fictional character in the world next to Superman um Spider-Man is extremely popular um but two they have had some success lately with their animated movies right they won an Academy Award for into the spiderverse they're probably going to win another Academy Award for across the spiderverse and that is a yeah that is a feather in the cap of Sony Pictures Entertainment and they don't want to let go of that Golden Goose so what I would say to them is cool bifurcate the animated liveaction rights or I'm sorry the animated feature film rights from all of the other rights sell the live action rights back to Marvel and then you can keep doing into the spiderverse across the spiderverse beyond the spider-verse under the spiderverse above the spiderverse beside the spiderverse whatever you know they could do any number of those that they want to do all right Mike I have one more question for you but first I want to hear about like what you got going on right now like where can the people find you what is it that you do when you're not uh on our show yeah um so in addition to being a huge nerd and a lawyer I'm also a standup comedian and an improviser in Chicago um so if you're in Chicago and you'd like to come and see a live show you can follow me on Instagram at mikem comedy uh if you're not in Chicago you can follow me there too because I post clips and stuff all the time uh if that's the thing that you're into yeah Mike's a great IG follow we're going to have U his link below in the description so last question right it's fun for us to lay out this like fairy tale world where Sony you know gets the right to Marvel and then Marvel has them all and yeah but they're not going to do the right thing they're a giant corporation whose job is to make money for their stockholders I what they don't care about the Nerds they don't you know they want to use us and I get and I'm fine with that I've come over the years I've come to be okay with corporations using my enthusiasm to bolster their stock price I welcome it it gives me great movies it's fine oh yeah so realistically though this IP you know they may be in a slump now but they got to be thinking like it's going to be worth so much money over the next few years is there any what would be their impetus to sell would the rights ever expire like what's the future of this look like right So eventually at some point Spider-Man will enter the public domain um I I can't give you an exact date on that right now but it's going to be something like 70 years after the death of the author um so whether you're tracking that depending on the lawsuit okay sure it would probably be whoever was the last of them to pass away but uh you know those deaths happened recently so we're talking decades and decades and decades into the future so I don't think their present concerns are with the rights expiring and they're still thinking about how much money can we milk out of this character until those rights eventually expire um and that's probably a pretty huge figure because even if they're making bad movies people are still going to go see them I'm I'm going to tell you right now I'm going to go see them like if if they put out an awful stiltman movie I'm going to go see it I'm going to go see I'm going to hate myself I'm see uh this guy wants you to follow him on Instagram but also telling you that he's going to go see Madame web too on opening day oh 100% I'm going to go to the premiere it'll be there on the red carpet so again you can follow Mike on his socials are listed below thanks very much for your legal counsel here we always appreciate it and we want to hear from you guys what do you want to see happen here do you want Sony to keep making movies like Madam Webb do you want Marvel to have rights what kind of Spider-Man 4 do you want to see from Tom Holland let us know in the comments or you can add me on Twitter and if it's your first time here please subscribe and smash that Bell for alerts for screen Crush I'm Ryan [Music] Ary

Channel: ScreenCrush

Views: 366,315

Keywords: screencrush, heavy spoilers, new rockstars, madame web spider-man, sydney sweeney, venom 3 teaser, venom 3 movie, spider man 2, spider man 2 ps5, dakota johnson interview, spider man miles morales, spider man no way home, madame web spoiler review, madame web post credit scene, madame web scene, madame web trailer breakdown, spider-man 4 movie, sydney sweeney glen powell

Id: pvtsvDG6JNU

Length: 28min 54sec (1734 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2024