Potential loophole in Marvel Studios rights

I wanna see Fantastic Four and Spider-Man back with Marvel more than the X-Men, because the X-Universe is so big it can exist on its own without getting old. That being said, I REALLY want all the franchises back with Marvel.

i personally don't want to see wolverine in an avengers movie,if wolverine appears in the marvel cinematic universe his got to be a member of the x-men.

spider-man & the fantastic four are a must,spider-man should be with marvel studios not sony.

spider-man is to marvel what superman & batman are to dc & as for the fantastic four that would open the door to so many more characters not just the fantastic four.

Fox owns movie and tv rights to all things "mutants" in marvel... They've already sued Marvel once over that show Mutant X because it was too close to the X-Men...

They have a loophole with quicksilver and scarlett witch because they have been avengers characters for decades. Even more notabe is that they were avenvers long before fox bought the rights to the X-Men corner of Marvel. The same can not be said for spidey and wolvie...

Marvel can have spiderman and wolverine or whoever on the Avenger's rosters for the next 30 years and it won't matter if the contracts predate their actions...

@MoonDoggyX from what I understand don't all the contracts include the ability to use characters that are created after they were initially signed? This could also include characters that have become strongly associated with other characters post contract e.g Wolverine to The Avengers and on the flip side Taskmaster to Deapool.

@batarangmandan - i'm not even going to pretend to be an expert on their contract. Its not like i've ever seen it, y'know. I could see if there were mutant character created after the contracts were signed that are associated with the avengers being used by marvel. That still would not include wolverine. Or spiderman.

It's all about when the film rights agreements were drawn. For example, Sony acquired the rights to the Spider-Man property years before Marvel made him an Avenger in the comics, so by the time they did that, Spider-Man was already Sony's property movie-wise.

On the other hand, Fox only acquired the rights to the X-Men property after Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch became Avengers (as they were very early members, probably from the late '60s/early '70s), so Fox had the right to use the characters in their X-Men franchise, but there was a loophole because they were already associated with The Avengers, a property which Fox didn't obtain.

The fact of the matter is, the ONLY way characters like Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and Ghost Rider will ever appear in a Marvel Studios movie, is in one of three ways:

1) The studio that owns the property doesn't make a movie based on it within a specific amount of time (I think it's eight years) and the rights revert back to Marvel.

2) Marvel buys the rights back, or trades the rights of one property for another - or rather, Disney trades rights. Sony originally acquired the rights for Spider-Man in a trade with MGM, as they owned part of the rights to James Bond and were able to produce their own Bond films. In theory, Disney could trade a property like Star Wars to Sony in exchange for Spider-Man, although that will never happen. Plus, if Disney wanted to buy any of their Marvel rights back, they would've done that instead of buying Star Wars.

3) Marvel makes a deal with the other studio where they share production costs, distribution rights and profits, meaning they both work on the movies. It seems like Marvel nearly did this with Spider-Man, as there were plans for Stark Tower to appear in The Amazing Spider-Man (and possibly for Oscorp to appear in The Avengers). If that happened, and was then taken further, Spider-Man could appear in an Avengers sequel, but it would mean that Sony would get a small amount of creative control (specifically regarding how Spider-Man was used in the film) and a share of the profits to be decided by both studios.

@ACira - Great points. I agree with you that option 3 is the best for us fans! I still believe that this is not too far from reality when it comes to Marvel and Fox. Fox has yet to hit the $500 million with any of their x-men movies. Having their movies connected with the Avengers Franchise might be just what they need to get over the hump...

@gamecreator - if that were the case, they wouldn't be able to use them at all. Marvel can't use the likenesses of characters owned but fox either. Otherwise, what would stop them from using a wolverine doppelgangar and call him "rogan"

@CPBuff I would love an X force movie, I'm pretty sure once they are done with the First Class movies, and done with the main X men movies, they'll do X-Force, they have been talking about it before, specifically as way to reintroduce deadpool, if they did, I'd say leave Wolverine out, just use X-23, Deadpool, and Arch Angel, maybe a fourth, I wouldn't put it past Fox to make X-23 a part of Weapon X, and make an X force revenge film

Hmmm....So, what if Marvel/Disney outright purchased SONY and/or FOX?...