Film Theory: Can Disney STEAL Spiderman? (Disney vs Sony Part 2)

what can I do for you sir um mouse I'm looking for a car something sporty something sexy well then do I have the perfect vehicle for you it's a Porsche Spyder super high-end great track speeds heads will be turning when you take this baby out on the road ha boy Oh fantastic though be warned it is an expensive car we're talking close to a hundred K for this baby I said I'll take it price is no object I see great I'll just ring it up right now you clearly don't understand I said I'll take that spider and I'll take it for free if I need to out buy up every other car dealership in the area just to put you out of business that spider will be mine for $0 and you know what you'll be glad about that I'll show it off alongside all my other cars and you will love it you'll eat it up you won't be able to get enough as I sell you the privilege to watch me show off all my cars are we still talking about cars I'll make millions billions off that free spider okay so would you like roadside insurance with that hello Internet welcome to film theory not owned by Disney yet but we are available so last time well last time we talked about Disney's other star attraction Elsa but the time before that we talked about spider-man and whether it makes sense for Disney to outright buy the movie rights to the character as well as all the other 900 characters that he's associated with all away from Sony Pictures for the pool pool price of five billion dollars ultimately concluding that yes it's a deal that makes a surprising amount of sense despite that figure being higher than what they paid for the entirety of the Marvel and Star Wars universe is the long and short of it was that they would get greater creative control over how the character gets used while also making more profit than they're currently getting in their current deal with Sony he becomes the leader of the New Avengers big villains get their own standalone releases allah venom minor characters and villains get their own Disney Plus shows everyone sells a whole lot of merch and Disney finally earns enough to knock down the Hollywood sign and rebrand the entirety of as Disneyland it's just now the whole southern half of the state of California however at the end of the episode I alluded to one key sticking point this will issue the possibility of Disney getting spider-man for free why pay ten or even five billion dollars for something when you can get the biggest discount in history and just walk away with it all for the low low price of zero billion dollars you don't even have to clip any coupons or use your honey browser plug-in for as crazy as that might sound it's actually within the realm of possibility so join me today for an episode of film theory all about game theory the economics concept a prisoner's dilemma played at the mega-corporation scale with billions of dollars and thousands of jobs on the line and all of it is centered on that darn webhead now up to this point in our analysis we've been talking a lot about what spider-man is worth to Disney but it's equally important to consider the value of Spidey's film rights to Saudi cuz if we're being honest sony needs spider-man big-time six of Sony's top 10 highest-grossing films worldwide are from the spider-man franchise over 50% it is undeniably the studio's biggest property without spider-man Sony's next biggest properties are James Bond pretty solid and then Jumanji I mean don't get me wrong the new Jumanji movies are a heck of a lot of fun but you know there's only so many times that you can laugh about people being put inside the rocks body oh yeah and then there's also the da Vinci Code oh boy what is this 2006 so despite Disney reportedly offering 5 million dollars now you can start to see why Sony might not want to sell the webhead for anything less than 10 it's one of the few reliable things they have that has the potential to make large stacks of cash last episode we covered the ins and outs of the different agreements Sony and Disney have had in place over the years so if you'd like more detail on those check out the previous episode but knowing those deal points consider this spider-man far from home was under the old agreement where Sony put up a hundred percent of the financing of the movie and got back 95 percent of what those movies made with the other 5 percent going to Disney as an entry fee to get him into the MCU Mickey Mouse is like the highest-paid bouncer of all time want to get into the MCU tell me when you can a billion dollars the film made one point one three billion dollars and Sony spent 160 million to make it in total Sony walks away with 921 million and just as a reminder all of this is super back in the napkin math not accounting for how much movie theaters make weird accounting costs etc etc entertainment is just a weird sketchy business where numbers can literally mean anything and come from anywhere right I have seen this in action all of these numbers take it with the heaviest dose of salt you possibly can anyway that being said had the movie been made under the current 2019 agreement Sony would have theoretically had to pay less to finance movie 120 million since Disney now helps pay for the other 25% as a result Sony takes home 75% of the return that's eight hundred and forty nine million in gross for a handy little seven hundred twenty nine million dollars in profit less overall return under this new deal but remember they're also having to take on significantly less monetary risk to make the movie forty million dollars worth of extra risk and allow dusty it's a win-win for them so if we assume that that's approximately the average earnings that they're gonna get out of a spider-man movie Sony now has to decide would they rather produce seven films under their current arrangement with Disney to try and earn themselves that five billion dollars that was offered while still retaining the film rights to themselves or would they rather take the easy paycheck of five billion dollars right on the mouse's hands and in the process lose the spider-man film rights making seven hit movies is a lot to accomplish especially when every other spider-man story seems to peter out after its third entry get it peter out Peter Parker out but seriously that's a really hard number to hit but then again you have far from homes amazing reception and super exciting cliffhanger venom as its own surprise hit due for its sequel and a follow-up to spider verse so all told the franchise is in a really great place spider-man is stronger than he's ever been right now it seems like it's a pretty easy call Sony should keep the film rights and keep raking in that sweet sweet Spider dough for another decade but all of that's assuming that Sony themselves will be in existence for years and years to come haha and that is the twist my friends rumor has it Apple is seriously thinking of acquiring Sony in the near future and those rumors just won't go away and see this is where it gets juicy because if Sony sells then spider-man's film rights automatically revert back to Marvel which Disney now owns that's right Disney would get the spider-man film rights for free if Sony winds up getting wrong so basically it's a white-collar game of chicken should Disney pay anything to get the rights when they might simply get them for free or should they hedge their bets and just buy it to be safe should Sony sell the rights to their cash cow because they plan to reject Apple's advances or should they sell the spider-man rights and pocket a cool five billion before Apple buys them outright anyway so here we see why Disney may be less eager to pay Sony's ten billion dollar price tag even though Disney could afford it and would likely recoup that investment paying 10 billion dollars for the spider-man universe wouldn't be the dumbest thing Disney could do but paying 10 billion dollars when they could have paid zero dollars for it certainly would be this is game theory at play in the real world here folks I am so excited because this one calls for a good old 2x2 matrix otherwise known as a payoff matrix now if you're unfamiliar game theory often uses matrices like these to help identify optimal strategies the most famous one is the prisoner's dilemma which is usually done with criminals and suspects but I actually prefer the other example of the British gameshow Golden Balls which is not only a hilarious name but also has incredibly simple but compelling strategy at play you see two players work together throughout the game to rack up a big cash pot but whether they get to walk away with any of that money ultimately depends on one final decision they can either choose to take it all or split the pot with their partner if they both choose to split the pot well they both win 50% of the day's earnings if one chooses to take it all and the other player chooses to split then the person who took it all wins everything and the other player wins nothing just for being a good person and if they both choose to be greedy and want to take it all they both win nothing and the balls are that much bigger and more golden in the next episode so now let's give it a spin with our Disney Soni scenario let's assume that Disney only has two options on the table either buy the rights for million dollar price tag that Sony wants or waded out with their current deal Sony meanwhile will either get acquired by Apple or not for our purposes we'll assume Disney has no idea what Apple plans do so this in turn sets up our two by two matrix Disney pay ten billion dollars are not Sony get acquired or not so now let's focus on the Disney payoffs for Disney the absolute best outcome is to pay nothing Sony sells to Apple and Disney just inherits the spider-man rights for free so if Disney waits and Sony gets bought Disney basically gets 10 billion dollars for free so we're gonna give this scenario a value of plus 10 for Disney the absolute worst outcome for Disney would be to pay the 10 billion dollars for the rights only to then have Sony get acquired by Apple at which point they would have paid for something that they could have gotten for free so we're gonna give that scenario a minus 10 to Disney what if Disney pays but Sony doesn't get acquired well that's just kind of a nothing lost nothing game scenario for both parties Disney pays a little more than they wanted to but we'll probably make that price up in time Sony gets what they believe to be a fair price for their assets so we're gonna give that 1 0-0 for both sides probably more accurately a minus 1 for Disney because they pay more than they wanted and a plus 1 for Sony since they're probably charging a bit of a high price tag but first simplicity let's say zero-zero finally if both Disney and Sony simply stay put in their current 2019 agreement we're gonna call that a plus 3 for Disney though they get less creative control and less money than they me like they're gonna make money and get to use spider-man in the MCU mostly positive so that's the Disney side of the matrix now let's talk about Sony the best case scenario for Sony is to pull a fast one on Disney they sell the rights to spider-man for 10 billion dollars right before Apple acquires um it's like finding a wallet with 10 billion dollars in it so that scenario is a big plus 10 for Sony worst case for Sony would be to not sell the rights at all and then get acquired they'd be getting nothing for something they themselves had valued at 10 billion dollars and that they could have very easily sold the Disney for at least 5 billion so that to Sony is gonna be a minus 10 scenario finally if Sony can manage to continue on with their current arrangement with Disney that's a small positive again I'd say like a plus 3 or a plus 5 they hold on to their biggest franchise they continue making good money off of it plus the film the spider-man could very well continue to increase in value in the mean time so with our matrix now filled in what does it tell us well we shouldn't read too much into Sony's options since the studio may not have much say in whether Apple acquires them or not that's to say the massive Apple Sony deal is probably gonna happen or not regardless of whether spider-man's measly little film rights get sold off Apple just probably doesn't care he's not getting those film rights either way by the nature of the contract it always is gonna revert back to Marvel but a clear dominant strategy does emerge for Disney no matter what happens to Sony if Disney waits Disney wins best case they wait and land a 10 when Sony gets acquired worst case Sony doesn't get bought and Disney still lands a plus 3 which is the second-best option for them on the entire matrix so while spider-man's movie rights may very well be worth the 10 billion dollar price tag that Sony seems to believe it's pretty clear that Disney won't be paying that price Sony's uncertain future simply puts them into week of a negotiating position if Apple does the quire Sony expect to see Disney and Sony's uneasy marriage continue indefinitely as it's mutually beneficial to both parties to keep Sony's movies linked to the MCU but if the Apple conversations do start getting really serious expect to see a lot of news about Sony shopping the spider-man film rights around in a last-ditch effort to get something for their property and when that happens expect Disney to wind up being the highest bidder taking the movie rights for far less than 10 billion dollars and continuing their unstoppable march towards world domination so is Spiderman worth paying 10 billion dollars for well we concluded last time that on paper yes was yes but in practice the machinations of big business actually say no Disney shouldn't buy but hey that's just a theory [Music] subscribe subscribe subscribe subscribe subscribe subscribe subscribe subscribe subscribe subscribe to film theory

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 3,293,581

Keywords: spiderman, spider-man, spider man, disney, marvel, mcy, sony, spiderman far from home, spiderman endgame, far from home, endgame, infinity war, spiderman far from home post credit scene, spider-man far from home full movie, credit scene far from home, disney spiderman, sony spiderman, spiderman spiderverse, spiderverse, spider verse, film theorists, film theory, matpat

Id: bTN_p7R_5mU

Length: 13min 17sec (797 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020