Fantastic Four (Man of Steel Edition) (2015)

[eldaec]

My guess if they really wanted Dr Doom they could do a Scarlet Witch.

Am I right in remembering his comic book origin has nothing to do with any F4 origin story?

Find it hard imagine a material number of people give a shit about Silver Surfer.

[HaemishM]

His comic origin has always been linked with Reed Richards, though in his original appearance, I don't think he acknowledged that he knew Richards.

[NowhereMan]

I thought he was a brilliant young scientist who was in competition with Richaaaaaards!!!!! and turned to Latverian sorcery as a supplement to help outachieve him, ended up horribly disfiguring himself and getting a mask.

It was tangential but they were definitely meant to have had some relationship early on prior to going off and becoming superhero/villains.

[jgsugden]

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are both spelled out in the licensing contracts as being non-exclusive to Fox/Marvel.  Doom is not.  He is one of the characters exclusively under Fox control as long as they keep crapping on film.

However, my prediction remains unchanged: Deal announced in 2017, new FF movie right after the Infinity movies, and the rogues gallery of the FF is the most attractive part of the deal for Marvel. 

[Threash]

I don't think they should do this, because why bother giving anyone money for a mediocre genre template when they have more characters than they can use already. But they clearly could do it.

People are hyped for Marvel getting them back so they have Dr. Doom and the Silver Surfer in the portfolio, not for the Richards.

Somewhere along the line Dr. Doom became this awesome character everyone drools over instead of a bumbling despot regularly defeated by teenagers and co-dependent narcissists.

You can even see this in Marvel Heroes, the devs have confirmed that Richards is "by far" the least popular character.  You see Doom everywhere on the other hand.

[Merusk]

To be fair, Richards is a pretty shitty powerset compared to Doom in MH. Remote missiles, Magic, Minions vs. "I turn into a beach ball!"

[Fordel]

It's not just Doom and Surfer, a lot of the aliens are tied up in the FF rights.

[eldaec]

I seriously doubt these contracts list names of characters.

And if they are demonstrably exclusively F4 stories, I doubt many people give a shit about them.

[Velorath]

I seriously doubt these contracts list names of characters.

We know from the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch stuff that they do to at least some extent.

[Threash]

Yeah, I'd be willing to bet the exact opposite.  Those contracts are probably incredibly specific as to what characters they have the rights to or don't.

[eldaec]

I seriously doubt these contracts list names of characters.

We know from the Quicksilver/Scarlet Witch stuff that they do to at least some extent.

This is the example that makes me assume they don't. I find it bizarre that individual characters like these two would have been negotiated into a non-exclusive pile back in the 90s, or that any characters would have been intentionally put in that state. The X-men deal was back when an independent Marvel had no intention of making their own movies.

That and the rumour that these contracts are why X-men and F4 comics no longer create new characters.

I could just about buy the idea that a list of specific headline characters are listed as exclusive (Wolverine, the F4 themselves, *possibly* Doom) and everything else is a free for all.

[Velorath]

The X-men deal was back when an independent Marvel had no intention of making their own movies.

But they had every intention of licensing out as many properties as they could. In that respect it makes sense to be very clear about what characters are covered under each license so New Line wouldn't piss off Sony by trying to put Morbius in a Blade movie.

Edit: Although in actuality I think there was some confusion as to who had the Morbius rights so maybe you could be somewhat right.

[Khaldun]

FFS some people around here don't learn. "Oh, nobody will care about THAT, only geeks care". Everybody will care if it's done well, nobody gives a shit if it isn't. If you didn't learn your lesson with Guardians of the Galaxy, you'll never learn it and get stuck with confident prognostications about what people who aren't ANYBODY reading here will like or not like.

People have loved a film that has space wizards with laser swords fighting space nazis. Go back to 1975 and try to sell that one to people who know better and you'd get nothing but long cries of neeeeeeerrrrrrrd.

Nerd shit fails under two circumstances:

1) when a person embarrassed by it being nerd shit tries to mainstream it or do a grimdark whatever take so it isn't so nerdy
2) when it's played like every damn footnote in the history of the property matters, when the fan service is too heavy

Of the amount of money spent to adapt comics, SF books, etc., #1 is vastly vastly vastly the dominant error. And it's made by people who say, "Nobody normal could care about the Silver Surfer". They're too afraid of error #2. Error #2 is if you have no sense at all of how to make something have a good 'take' for people who don't care much about comics. Which hasn't happened that often. Especially in the MCU so far.

[Merusk]

You're such an angry little man.

Rage on angry guy. Some day it'll matter.

[jgsugden]

No need to argue... they've said the contracts list the big names and establish rules for minor characters and new characters. First appearancesappearances of characters are a significant element in the way the general rules work. They said that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were amongst a small handful of characters that were left as nonexclusive because they played major roles in X lore and Avengers lore. They did anticipate the possibility of an Avengers movie and wanted to have the rights to do the stories with the Scarlet Witch, but Fox wanted to be able to have Magneto's children as well as an option.

[HaemishM]

Apparently, they aren't Magento's children anymore.

[Merusk]

Except when they are, as was meant to be inferred in the recent First Class movie. 

[sickrubik]

This is the example that makes me assume they don't. I find it bizarre that individual characters like these two would have been negotiated into a non-exclusive pile back in the 90s, or that any characters would have been intentionally put in that state. The X-men deal was back when an independent Marvel had no intention of making their own movies.

The ones listed are the ones that ARE exclusive. There are ones that fell through the cracks, so to speak, like Scarlet Witch/Quicksilver.

On FF, Skrulls are tied up in that, so you can't have an actual Skrull/Kree war stuff. It makes some of the background stuff of GoG a little ... humorous from a fan-perspective.

[HaemishM]

Except when they are, as was meant to be inferred in the recent First Class movie. 

No, I mean in the comics they aren't Magneto's children. They've now been revealed to be experiments of the High Evolutionary with the Maximoff family actually being their real parents so not even really mutants in the Marvel sense - they are actually mutates (Marvel's made that distinction forever).