Zachariah
Banned
Back in 1998, Sony Pictures executive Yair Landau met with Marvel about the rights to Spider-Man. They already had the DVD rights but wanted the full film rights. New Marvel chief Ike Perlmutter made him a surprising counter offer, wherein Sony would not only take Spider-Man but also pretty much every other Marvel character, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Ant-Man, and Black Panther, in a deal which would have cost $25 million.
However, when Landau took the offer back to his bosses at Sony, they quickly shot it down. “Nobody gives a sh—about any of the other Marvel characters," Landau recalled. "Go back and do a deal for only Spider-Man.” So they did, and instead Sony made a deal to acquire the rights to Spider-Man from Marvel for $10 million, plus 5% of any movies' gross revenue and half the revenue from consumer products. Marvel was a bit desperate for cash at the time, so that might have seemed like a win on their part, but Perlmutter's business partner Avi Arad didn't think so, calling the deal "pitiful".
Of course, as we all now know, this proved to be a big mistake in the long run, given the huge success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe IOTL. So then, what if Sony had accepted Perlmutter's original counter-offer in 1998, and secured the film rights for every single Marvel character back then for $25 million, effectively making Marvel Studios a subsidiary of Sony Pictures? Would they have created a Marvel Cinematic Universe of their own, earlier than IOTL? And how might TTL's alternate MCU have panned out, under Sony's jurisdiction?
However, when Landau took the offer back to his bosses at Sony, they quickly shot it down. “Nobody gives a sh—about any of the other Marvel characters," Landau recalled. "Go back and do a deal for only Spider-Man.” So they did, and instead Sony made a deal to acquire the rights to Spider-Man from Marvel for $10 million, plus 5% of any movies' gross revenue and half the revenue from consumer products. Marvel was a bit desperate for cash at the time, so that might have seemed like a win on their part, but Perlmutter's business partner Avi Arad didn't think so, calling the deal "pitiful".
Of course, as we all now know, this proved to be a big mistake in the long run, given the huge success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe IOTL. So then, what if Sony had accepted Perlmutter's original counter-offer in 1998, and secured the film rights for every single Marvel character back then for $25 million, effectively making Marvel Studios a subsidiary of Sony Pictures? Would they have created a Marvel Cinematic Universe of their own, earlier than IOTL? And how might TTL's alternate MCU have panned out, under Sony's jurisdiction?