Bleeding Cool: Would Marvel Really Cancel Fantastic Four To Snub Fox?

[John Ossie]

True story, one time this guy went into my LCS with his girlfriend and she said "Oh wow, I didn't know Iron Man was a comic book."

And? That doesn't happen that often.

[Vibranium]

I wonder how much it would cost Fox to go in the opposite direction and simply buy the X-Men and FF comic publishing rights from Marvel.

it doesn't work that way

[Kid A]

It's more plausible that Marvel would cancel F4 because it's not that profitable. The book obviously doesn't sell in cancellation territory, but they're not anywhere near the sales of say X-Men books. So compound that with Marvel not having the movie rights, and they probably just don't see value in publishing F4 rather than trying to snub Fox.

[cyberhubbs]

I'm not sure what effect cancelling Fantastic Four would have on the movies. And it has nothing to do with whether or not FF's book sales are a drop in the bucket compared to movies seen around the world. The movie rights don't go away just because the book might, and the other way around.

[ManaByte]

I don't buy the theory that the book sales are horrible. It did about 34k in April. That's #60 on the list, but it's still higher than some of the X-books and newer Marvel books like Punisher and Elektra.

[Peter Parker]

you'll get the FF popping up in the occasional panel or guest shot, but unless Marvel Studios gets the rights back (and if this story is true) they won't have their own title for a bit

the movies are what makes the $$$, the books are kind of supplemental at this point in time

more eyes will see one Marvel movie than a year of sales for X-Men or FF, so you cater to your base and stick to your brands that work

A year? Try a decade of sales. I'd wager the Avengers movie made more money in one month than all Avengers floppies combined.

[Peter Parker]

A good question. As much as we wish that X-Men, FF, and Spider-Man were included within the MCU it's some ways best they're split up. Allows lesser known characters a chance to get the spotlight and for more creativity to happen.

Of course, the downside is that due to them wanting synergy we'd see them get higher promotion at the expense of others with exception of Spidey.

That and Marvel is generally making much better movies than the others, even Sony.

[Mr. Mastermind]

Maybe Marvel wants to give the property a rest for a while, and bring it back when the movie comes out. That way there'd be a lot more excitement for a relaunch than there usually would be and help revive the dead property.

I don't see this move happening to snub Fox because it doesn't affect them in any way possible. The comic book audience are going to see the movie anyway, and even if the move does make them forget the FF, they're such an absolutely tiny percentage of the audience it wouldn't matter ether way. The reboot is apparently based on Ultimate FF more than anything in the 616, and the current Ultimate FF title has so many Avengers characters they could never adapt it. The FF has a rich 50+ year history so a few years without a book won't make any difference to the movies.

[insert90]

How has no one brought up James Robinson in all of this?
He has huge ongoing plans for both F4 and Invaders.

Yeah. It's pretty unfair to Robinson (who's already gotten screwed by DC on Earth 2) that Fantastic Four might get cancelled in the middle of his run.

[Alvarez]

Yeah. It's pretty unfair to Robinson (who's already gotten screwed by DC on Earth 2) that Fantastic Four might get cancelled in the middle of his run.

Which is another reason I doubt this is true.

[ManaByte]

Something Bleeding Cool is forgetting (or doesn't know) is that Marvel also has a company-wide "no use" policy on Adam Warlock. That's according to Jim Starlin.

Marvel owns the film rights to Adam Warlock, so putting him on a no-use status wouldn't be to snub a rival film studio. I guess it's something Marvel does with certain characters.

They could be telling other artists to not use the FF characters in order to not step on Robinson's toes with what he has planned for them.

[runguy]

Nobody's managed to explain how cancelling the Fantastic Four would hurt Fox.

The comic buying audience is only a small subset of the moviegoing audience.

For the average moviegoer, the FF book might as well not exist as it is.

Here's what I think may happen. There is a tie end to the movie but not how BC thinks. Currently Robinson is deconstructing the FF and this could lead to the end of the series. Now were the FF movie comes into play is that FF series would relaunch about the time the movie comes out (June 2015).

[skyvolt2000]

Exactly.

And if the FF movie is good and is a hit (despite the bad reviews, the first FF movie was actually a big hit in the pre 3-D days), Fox will continue to make FF movies whether or not there's an FF comic.

Unless you are trying to avoid what happened with Green Lantern. Folks liked a certain cartoon and went to the comic book store looking for some guy named John but found Hal. Same with a certain movie.

Remember you are dealing with a movie with one MAJOR cast changing. In fact 2 roles changing that veer from the comic and we've seen the reaction to it.

So if you do embargo the FF is it to avoid that-no matter how few moviegoers might head to a comic book store.

Or you embargo them and toss out a new series the same week, day or month as that film and introduce MBJ's version of Johnny. New series huge question mark in the first arc and you get added attention with both the film and comic version being the same guy. Whose to say Johnny Storm doesn't have a biracial son out there.

[Deathlok2011]

I hope Marvel does whatever it takes to screw over Stupid fox!

[Hamdinger]

And the article just got updated with Rich Johnson posting what he says is the instruction sheet to the sketch card artists, stating that "all Marvel characters related to the Fantastic Four are now off limits and will be immediately rejected by Marvel. This includes but is not limited to:

*Mr. Fantastic
*Invisible Woman
*Thing
*Human Torch
*Doctor Doom
*Galactus
*Silver Surfer
*The Watcher
*Skrulls
*Etc...any derivative"

My dream of a monthly Willie Lumpkin team up book is probably on hold, sadly....