lol: Disney and Sony Unable to Reach Deal on Renewing Rights-Sharing Agreement Over Spider-Man; Disney/Marvel Will Go Back to Plan of SJW Characters No One Cares About

lol.

Now, this could very well just be saber-rattling. As a James Bond fan, I heard many times that Roger Moore was done with the role, before news broke that he'd just signed to do another one at for an assumedly-larger paycheck.

But at the moment, Sony thinks it doesn't need Marvel to make Spider-Man work.

Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige won't produce any further Spider-Man films because of an inability by Disney and Sony Pictures to reach new terms that would have given the former a co-financing stake going forward. A dispute that has taken place over the past few months at the top of Disney and Sony has essentially nixed Feige, and the future involvement of Marvel from the Spider-Man universe, sources said.

Sony is probably fighting for some kind of deal that cedes them the Spider-Man character in perpetuity or near-perpetuity. Marvel is meanwhile thinking that if they let Sony make Spider-Man movies, they'll just fail again, and eventually give the character up due to not making movies at the contractually-specified pace (something like a minimum of one Spider-Man movie every 4 or 5 years or something).

The article explained the disagreement. It's just about money:

There is a lot of webbing here, but it all comes down to money, and it’s easy to understand why both sides refused to give ground. Disney asked that future Spider-Man films be a 50/50 co-financing arrangement between the studios, and there were discussions that this might extend to other films in the Spider-Man universe. Sony turned that offer down flat, and I don’t believe they even came back to the table to figure out a compromise. Led by Tom Rothman and Tony Vinciquerra, Sony just simply didn’t want to share its biggest franchise. Sony proposed keeping the arrangement going under the current terms where Marvel receives in the range of 5% of first dollar gross, sources said. Disney refused.

This leaves Marvel Disney with:

Iron Man dead

Captain America retired and "super-aged"

Black Widow dead

Hawkeye retired and even when he wasn't retired, still just Hawkeye

Hulk still partly controlled by Universal

Spider-Man apparently departed for the sure-to-fail "Sony Spider-Man Cinematic Universe"

Thor supposedly still around, but probably soon to be replaced by his gender-swapped replacement, also called "Thor" because no one would see a movie called "The Savage Sword of Jane Foster."

Marvel still has:

Captain Marvel, a character no one cares about played by an actress no one likes

Ms. Marvel, a Muslim-American girl who can stretch and enlarge her body like Mr. Fantastic, who no one really likes

The Fantastic Four, a team that has failed three times at the box office before, led by Mr. Fantastic, who no one really likes

The badly damaged X-Men, a very diminished brand due to overexposure and bad movie outings

The Eternals, a group of cosmic beings who never did much in sales or impact, who are complete ripoffs of DC's New Gods, another group of cosmic beings who never did much in sales or impact. Both groups were created by Jack Kirby in his declining years.

Nova, a character you never heard of and for good reason too

Quasar, a character who can be described as "the poor man's Nova"

Pulsar, a character who could be described as "a gender- and race-swapped Quasar"

Black Panther, a very overpowered and overrated character that White Liberals and Fake Geeks pretended to be totally in love with for two months

Ant-Man, a character that even Marvel itself treats like an embarrassing joke

and the Guardians of the Galaxy. I always thought this franchise was dumb, "science fiction" for people who don't like science fiction, "action" for Fake Geek Girls who don't like actual action, and I gotta think the public appetite for this crew is fading.

Oh, and I forgot: They're reviving Blade, which people are pretending to be excited about. And rumor has it that Blade will be religion-swapped to be... duh duh duh... a Muslim.

Despite the fact that characters in Marvel movies who might be expected to be Christian are never noted as such. "Christian" means, in Marvel, not really religious at all, but Blade, rumor has it, will be characterized with religious belief.

There will be no religion in all of Marvel except for Islam and... well, Norse, I guess.

So that's what Marvel has to work with going forward. Some old characters no one really cares about and some new characters no one's ever really liked.

In unrelated yet related news, Disney's stocks slid a bit due to a whistleblower claiming that Disney had overstated its income by billions in years past.

A former Walt Disney Co. accountant says she has filed a series of whistleblower tips with the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging the company has materially overstated revenue for years.

Sandra Kuba, formerly a senior financial analyst in Disney's DIS, -0.12% revenue-operations department who worked for the company for 18 years, alleges that employees working in the parks-and-resorts business segment systematically overstated revenue by billions of dollars by exploiting weaknesses in the company's accounting software.

Kuba said she has met with officials from the SEC on several occasions to discuss the allegations.

A spokeswoman for the SEC declined to comment.
...

Kuba's whistleblower filings, which have been reviewed by MarketWatch, outline several ways employees allegedly boosted revenue, including recording fictitious revenue for complimentary golf rounds or for free guest promotions. Another alleged action Kuba described in her SEC filing involved recording revenue for $500 gift cards at their face value even when guests paid a discounted rate of $395.

Kuba has also alleged that employees sometimes recorded revenue twice for gift cards, both when guests bought the gift card and when it was used at a resort. Sometimes, revenue was recorded even though a gift card was given to a guest for free following a customer complaint, for instance, according to the whistleblower's allegations.

Disney calls these charges "without merit."

Which is what I call its dying Star Wars brand, but that's a separate issue.

posted by Ace of Spades at 05:05 PM

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