Once upon a time Sony had a chance to buy up all of Marvel’s movie rights for a paltry sum of $25 million. Yes, ALL of Marvel’s movie rights, meaning that every last superhero movie that could be considered possible would have been Sony’s to do with what they wanted. So what was their response? It’s quite simple, they didn’t think that anyone gave a hoot about the other Marvel superhero’s. They wanted Spider-Man and that was it, and that’s what they got for $10 million. While the film made them a lot of money Marvel Studios finally took a chance and created Iron Man, and the rest, as they say, is history.
You have to think that the people at Sony watching Iron Man, then Thor, then the Avengers come out was doing a serious face-palm at that moment as inside their heads they were kicking themselves for not doubling down and buying up all the rights to the Marvel universe for such a low price. Because who cares about the rest of the Marvel stable? Right? Hoo boy, when people are wrong on this level they’re not just wrong, they’re proven to be more short-sighted than Mr. Magoo. Even that old codger might have given Sony a sour look at letting of a deal that would have placed them on the throne that the MCU now rests upon. At this point trying to topple the MCU is a task that only the DCEU could possibly envision, but even that doesn’t seem likely to happen anytime soon with the recent devastation that was the Snyder-plagued, CGI-botched Justice League.
There’s always room for improvement in any movie no matter how slight, but the DCEU has given up a lot of ground to the MCU in recent years and gaining it back is going to take more than sequels or standalone adventures like Wonder Woman 2 and Aquaman. Added to that is the fact the MCU is constantly working to outdo franchises like Star Wars, which is still going strong, and the DCEU doesn’t have much of a fighting chance at the moment. But to think that Sony passed up on the Marvel rights because they didn’t think anyone would care about the other heroes, huh boy. That ten million they shelled out to get Spider-Man was earned back quite easily but had they taken more they probably could have resisted being trumped so easily as the years rolled by, and they might have been able to produce Spider-Man 2 and 3 without a lot of serious backlash towards the character.
In truth the deal with Marvel is that it’s all been a mess for quite some time. The heroes that should be existing in the same world haven’t been able to since their rights have been spread all over Hollywood. Avengers: Infinity War is a good example since the comic book that inspired the movie was far, FAR more inclusive when it came to the heroes that were involved. Had the MCU gotten the rights back earlier we could have seen a few X-Men and other heroes in the mix. But as of now it’s all about the Avengers, as it’s been for a long time now. But hey, no one cares about them right Sony? I hope that was a learning experience.
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