PhantomStranger

Any proposed Disney/Fox Fantastic Four agreement would involve a dreaded revenue sharing split. Hollywood studios hate that arrangement because it becomes an accounting nightmare for an industry that plays hard and fast with its numbers.

Solid Snake

FF1 w/ a budget of $100 million:
Domestic: $154,696,080 46.8%
+ Foreign: $175,883,639 53.2%

= Worldwide: $330,579,719


FF2 w/ a budget of $130 million:
Domestic: $131,921,738 45.6%
+ Foreign: $157,126,025 54.4% -

= Worldwide: $289,047,763


You're a bit off on how much they made.

Still weak for that time. It is a losing property though.

kgrogers1979

Yet Disney and Sony are doing exactly that....



Yeah, I have no idea from where that other poster was pulling his numbers. Out of thin air I guess. FF is worth way more than $1 million. That's pocket change to these companies. If Disney could buy the rights back that cheaply, then they would have already done so.

Some people act like companies are only having discussions with each other if they publicly say so. No, companies deal with each other all the time, and the public mostly never hears of it. I mean, the public wasn't even aware that Marvel and Sony were discussing a Spidey co-development deal until those documents were leaked. I bet Marvel and Fox have had similar discussions as well, and just nothing has ever come of it because no deal could be reached.

stingermck

'Fantastic Four' Could Lead to $60 Million Write-Off for Fox

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...lead-60-814324

majorjoe23

Marvel didn't declare bankruptcy until 1996. Marvel was in pretty good shape financially until they bought Heroes World in 1994.

Looking through the Wikis for the Fantastic Films, I find a figure of Bernd Eichinger paying $250,000 for the rights in the late 80's. He was the producer on both Tim Story films and the new film.

I'm not sure if that's a contractual thing, or if he's continued to hold the rights off that initial purchase.

Lord Zarak

So, apparently Fox is moving ahead with FF2. They must reeeeaaaaallly not want Marvel to have the rights back.

http://bskipper27.tumblr.com/post/12...ad-with-sequel

wlj

I am just not a fan of the Fantastic Four characters in movies or comics. They are boring and irritating

Decker

How often do they have to make a film to keep the character rights?

dex14

7 years

stingermck

That's pure insanity if the produce another one after this mess.

kgrogers1979

and they get everywhere! like sand!

B5Erik

Yeah, never mind that they spend almost as much promoting and advertising the movie as they do on actual production costs...

Oh, yeah - the theaters get about 1/3 of the gross, so your figures are way off...

Solid Snake

They're not my figures. They're BOM's. Either way...they're still losses. Not worth the time and money for Fox. And especially now.

fumanstan

DVD revenue was much bigger back then too though; they wouldn't have made a sequel if the first Fantastic Four movie wasn't profitable.

The Antipodean

There will be talk of there being a sequel. It's bluster this week to cover up the flop stench. It won't actually happen. We've seen this before with other flops. It'll quietly fade away much like Amazing Spider-Man 3 and the Sinister Six movie and Green Lantern 2.

PhantomStranger

There is no chance of a direct sequel. That is mere talk to prevent even more bad headlines while the movie is still in theaters.

It's possible Fox salvages the characters/actors they liked in it for a spot in an X-Men/Deadpool movie down the line. I still think the only viable option at this point for the studio is an X-Men vs. Fantastic Four movie if they want to save the FF brand for the next five years.

fumanstan

Agreed, their best bet is to do some sort of crossover with X-Men to try and make the characters and brand somewhat worthwhile.

A-aron

Is this yet another Fox property with no merchandising? I know there were no action figure tie-ins for DOFP, and now this one. I'd have to think that the losses would be less if they actually made toys for these films.

Come to think about it - I didn't see any Ant-Man items in places like Target. Last one I remember seeing things for was Age of Ultron.

Mike86

It pretty much is their only real viable option in my opinion. A sequel to this disaster would make no sense and I can't imagine that Fox realistically plans to move forward with those plans. Another reboot also doesn't seem likely given that they've tried two different versions already within a relatively short period.

My only thing is I really don't know how well the two franchises will mesh with each other personally. The X-Men kind of work in their own universe but I really feel like the Fantastic Four would feel somewhat out of place in that universe. They'd work better in the MCU and its a shame that Fox is probably going to keep the franchise in their death grip for who knows how long. Plus the X-Men films have mostly been good so I don't want shitty Fantastic Four characters thrown in to X-Men films just so Fox can retain the rights.

Solid Snake

Add in that unless they want to keep the FF in a modern world... they'd have to go w/ the old cast. BUT... we're moving forward w/ the younger version of these characters so unless time travel is involved again...it could get kind of weird for a mesh.

GoldenJCJ

I'd suggest watching the movies four or five more times. You'll learn to love them.

Solid Snake

I really love the team and how they grew. They've had some great stuff the past 10 years or so.

Obi-Wanma

Marvel retains merchandising rights for films featuring their characters, and they are intentionally not producing anything to support the Fox films

There's an Ant-Man line in the Legends series, but those are the $20 collector figures, and the only recognizable characters from the movie in that line are Ant-Man and the Wasp (The rest of the line features characters like Bulldozer and Grim Reaper). So yeah, really not much of anything for kids, even though it's the most kid friendly MCU film yet, so it's pretty strange.

Mike86

Well I'm sure that Marvel didn't give Ant-Man the full push in regards to merchandising/toys because they were unsure on how well received it would be. There wasn't a ton of stuff for Guardians of the Galaxy really either other than a Marvel Legends line if I recall correctly.

Obi-Wanma

There were a bunch of Guardians toys that started appearing on shelves in early to mid July last year, weeks before the movie came out.