My 1999

The Hulk, Poseidon Namor, and the female version of the Hulk are in the hands of Universal.

The X-Men franchise, Daredevil, Galactus, Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four are owned by 20th Century Fox.

On May 16, 2000, Artisan Entertainment reached an agreement with Marvel to make at least 15 comic characters into movies or TV series, including Captain America, Black Panther, Black Widow, Deadpool, Iron Fist, Ant-Man, Punisher, Humanoid, Vampire Morbius, Longshot and more.

On October 23, 2003, Lionsgate acquired Artisan Entertainment and inherited its Marvel character rights.

What needs to be mentioned here is Iron Man and Deadpool.

In 1990, Universal bought the character rights of Iron Man, Hulk and Namor.

In 1996, 20th Century Fox purchased the rights to Iron Man from Universal.

In 1999, the rights to Iron Man were transferred to New Line Cinema. However, none of these three companies paid much attention to Iron Man. In the end, the copyright of Iron Man was taken back by Marvel in 2006, and "Iron Man" was adapted and produced, helping Marvel achieve its glorious future.

The Marvel copyrights currently held by New Line include Iron Man and Blade.

Then there's Deadpool.

If Xu Liang hadn't interfered, the rights to Deadpool would have been purchased by New Line Cinema in 2004.

In 2005, it was purchased by 20th Century Fox.

Unlike the X-Men, the rights to Deadpool sold to Fox are limited to a limited time period, similar to Spider-Man's rights to Sony.

If no new movies are released after a certain period of time, the copyright will be revoked.

This is why Sony remakes Spider-Man every three or four years.

Fox put Deadpool in "The Wolverine", but fans didn't buy it when they saw the revised Deadpool and expressed serious protest. In the end, Fox chose to reshoot Deadpool's solo movie, so "Deadpool" was born. Waiter" solo movie.

In addition to Artisan and 20th Century Fox, Sony is also a major holder of Marvel copyrights, and has obtained the most popular Marvel copyright "Spider-Man".

The process is also somewhat tortuous.

In 1985, Spider-Man was sold to Cannon Pictures, but the other party was blind to gold and jade.

By 1989, Cannon Pictures was acquired by French film company EMI, but Cannon Pictures chairman Minahan Golan took the rights to Spider-Man to 20th Century Fox.

Twentieth Century Fox was also unlucky. After acquiring the rights, they failed to film it.

Later, Golan sold the script for adapting Spider-Man to Columbia Pictures, preparing it for James Cameron to shoot, and also starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as Doctor Octopus.

But it didn't work out for various reasons.

Later, MGM acquired some assets of 20th Century Fox, including the Spider-Man script, but Columbia Pictures insisted that the copyright should belong to them. In the end, Columbia Pictures obtained the copyright of Spider-Man.

Xu Liang feels distressed every time he reads the information here.

If he could buy MGM earlier, he might still have a chance to get involved with Spider-Man.

This is the most profitable comic copyright for Marvel and even the entire United States.

From Toby Spider to The Amazing Spider-Man to Dutch Spider, the worst one has a box office of more than 700 million US dollars, and the highest box office "Spider-Man: No Home" has a global box office of up to 1.879 billion US dollars.

There are also Spider-Man spin-off movies "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse", Marvel series, and peripheral rights.

Spider-Man alone is worth over ten billion dollars, almost as much as the entire Marvel series.

This shows how profitable it is.

The key is that Sony not only owns the copyright of Spider-Man, but also the copyright of other comic characters related to Spider-Man, such as Venom, Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Mysterio, etc. It can make movie adaptations at will, while Marvel can only provide some It is recommended to avoid conflicts with the MCU storyline.

The two Venom films have grossed nearly $1.4 billion at the box office.

One Spider-Man and derivative copyrights are enough for Sony to continue to eat.

Now that "Spider-Man 1" has been released, with a box office of more than 800 million US dollars, as long as Sony's people are not stupid, they will not sell this copyright.

Of course, if Xu Liang is willing to spend money, he can buy it.

But if the price is too high, it’s not worth it.

Spending US$3 billion will achieve US$20 billion in revenue and a net profit of around US$6 billion by 2020.

The return on this investment is only twice that, and when extended to 17 years, the annual growth rate is 11.76%.

This net benefit must be good, even good, to others.

But for Xu Liang, it was not satisfactory.

And you may not be able to get 30% of the net profit. After all, overseas movies are not like the United States where you can get half.

Like China, the maximum is 35%.

Therefore, the actual rate of return must be lower.

As for, will Sony sell the Spider-Man copyright for US$3 billion?

As long as Howard Stringer is not stupid, it will only sell for more.

"Spider-Man 1" has a box office of over US$800 million, including VCD, TV rights and film and television peripherals.

One movie can make Sony at least $200 million.

Even if evaluated at 20 times net profit, Spider-Man's copyright is worth US$4 billion.

As an old Hollywood hunter, Stringer will definitely not let go of this big piece of fat.

"U.S.$1.8 billion is just U.S.$1.8 billion. Although the price is a bit high, it is not too outrageous at least. It will be a long night and a dream, so hurry up and sign the contract."

"yes."

"Has Artisan Entertainment contacted Universal?"

After acquiring Marvel, Xu Liang must of course take back as much of the copyrights he sold as possible.

"We have contacted Artisan Entertainment. Although there is competition from Lions Gate, Lions Gate's capital is not as good as ours, so we have great hopes of winning it.

As for Universal, Olafur Voight told me that for $200 million, the rights to Iron Man, the Hulk and Namor would be ours.

Mr. Xu, the people of Universal are totally treating us as the villain. "

Xu Liang smiled and said: "It's normal. Who makes them short of money now?"

"When Marvel is finished, you ask Billy to talk to Artisan Entertainment, and you personally talk to Universal. As long as the price is not too exaggerated, you can sign a contract.

Remember, we must hurry up before Global and General Electric reach a cooperation. "

General Electric is not short of money, so it may not be willing to sell the copyright.

"yes."

Xu Liang originally planned to ask Liao Yan to go to 20th Century Fox to ask.

But after thinking about it, I forgot about it.

After acquiring Artisan and taking the characters from Universal, the main characters of the Avengers are basically assembled.

The remaining characters are enough to be developed for a long time, and there is no need to plot against 21st Century Fox.

Moreover, apart from the X-Men series, Daredevil, Galactus, Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four, there are basically no popular copyrights, and he is too lazy to work on them.

After explaining, Liao Yan hung up the phone.