Semi-unrelated, but I remember reading somewhere that the Walt Disney Company employs more lawyers than every major law firm combined. While I can only imagine the Byzantine nature of Entertainment Law, I wonder if it's as dry as Admiralty/Maritime Law?
Anyway. Per Stoo's advice, I thought I would drop in and append some of my post from
his thread.
Moedred said:
...another payout could make sense.
Disney has a positively massive war chest, but another payout to Paramount and/or The Beards isn't going to happen. Dipping into Unca Scrooge's vault isn't a problem, but they aren't going to. Why? Disney doesn't want to. Not only is their focus elsewhere, but they don't make movies for other studios to distribute.
Disney's 5 Year Plan looks something like this:
Jerry Bruckheimer's first look deal with Disney expires after
Pirates 5 and
National Treasure 3. Smart money says Jerry gets kicked to the curb after the complete bath the company took on
John Carter and
The Lone Ranger. If
Pirates 5 is an absolute monster hit, the partnership has a slim chance of continuing. I doubt it, though. All of that money could have been directed into other, better projects.
Jerry might be suffering from his own version of Barry Sonnenfeld Disease.
Not many companies can lose a cool half-a-billion dollars and have their stock price remain relatively unchanged. In fact, I distinctly recall it rising, like, two-percent the Monday after
The Lone Ranger opened. I'll need to find my quarterly report, but I believe it's up ~35% on the year overall. That's impressive.
Disney will continue its remaining Marvel acquisitions & projects. The distribution deal with Paramount ended after
Iron Man 3's release, so Thor & Captain America are owned outright. The rights to Ghost Rider, Daredevil, The Punisher, and Luke Cage have reverted back to Marvel as well. Their attendant villains and sidekicks are included, too. Natch. There's a strong rumor going around that Fox has approximately one year to start shooting another Fantastic Four movie, or those rights also revert back to Marvel as well. While Disney-Marvel would like the rights to those characters back just because, I believe the real attraction to be Dr. Doom.
So, that leaves Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, Wolverine, and those damn mutants out of the family. It's understandable that Disney wants those feature film rights* back.
*--Disney negotiated back 100% of all television rights to Spider-Man and (I believe) a significant cut of all merchandising proceeds in exchange for allowing Sony more time to produce their next series of films.
Now here is where it gets speculative. Sony has made about $3.2-billion (using Box Office Mojo's numbers) on a total series budget of $850-million. So, they come out ahead by $2.4-billion over the decade. Figure that they'll do similar business over the next four films, but beyond that what will the budgets for tentpole pictures look like in 2018? With virtually all ancillary rights to Spider-Man negotiated away -- and zero crossover options -- the long term attachment to the webslinger doesn't look that attractive.
In the other thread I suggested that Disney would offer Sony a cool billion dollars in walk-away money. Let's up the ante, though. Get really wild. What if the House of Mouse offered to make Sony whole? Give them $3-to-4-billion? In essence handing Sony the money they would have made over another decade. Is it obscene? Absolutely. Can Disney afford it? Of course. The long term returns of having Spider-Man more than outweigh that kind of investment.
Peter Parker in a third or fourth Avengers movie? A not so small corner of the internet will explode. Spidey scaling the Matterhorn West of the Mississippi? You couldn't find tickets to the park. The wallcrawler swinging from the Matterhorn to Sleeping Beauty's castle? Florida would secede from the Union and become East California for the opportunity. Cruise ships, theme park encounters, crossover films, games, merchandise: It'd pay for itself in a year's time.
Hyperbolic? Certainly. Spider-Man, though, is probably why you'll never, ever see a payout to anybody for Indiana Jones.
Now enjoy this picture of Spider-Man to break up what's quickly becoming a wall of text.
The obvious component of that same plan involves that crown jewel of acquisitions,
Star Wars. There's going to be so much money pumped into
Star Wars that fans of the series (I'm not) are going to be sick of it. There'll be about six movies, a few television shows, books and comics aplenty, and the chances for increasing the presence in the parks is astronomical. Nowhere more so than Disneyland where Tommorowland is going under the wrecking ball for the third(?) time in my life. Don't forget the Chinese. They'll be spoonfed
Star Wars, too.
IndyForever said:
I do not see Paramount selling Indy distribution rights unless its a huge payday for them.
Forbidden Eye said:
I'm sure Paramount will fight for Indy.
Don't count on it. Rights are funny things.
The further we get away from
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and 2008, the actual value of those rights shrinks even further. There's nothing in the public consciousness in the terms of merchandise or product that allows them to retain any real value. Couple that with Ford's AARP-membership, and every second he ages, those rights are worth even less than would be in a simply dormant franchise like Batman or Bond. The long term viability of the character (read: Once Ford takes that dirt nap) is unproven.
Blame this on The Beards, and to a lesser extant, Ford. There's no real reason why it took thirty years to turn out four movies. Had
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull been the sixth or seventh movie, the street value of those rights would be higher.
IndyForever said:
A Paramount/Disney co-production is about the best we can hope for with Ford
Won't happen. See above. Disney doesn't make movies for other studios to distribute. Note the fates of both
The Spectacular Spider-Man and
Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
IndyForever said:
The public would flock to see an Indy 5 with Ford/Spielberg/Lucas
Really? Are you absolutely certain it wasn't curiosity tinged with nostalgia that drove audiences into the theatre for
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Twenty years is a lo-ong time between entries. Had the box office remained consistent with a couple of more entries, you might have an argument.
This is a large part of the encumbrance Disney is operating under regarding any future Indiana Jones pictures. The actual distribution rights will be had for a song, but what will future films hold? Nobody's going to watch an octogenarian punch enfeebled Nazis as they fight over the final oxygen tank.
Udavarnky said:
It is inevitable that Disney will visit the Indiana Jones property
No, not really. The character could just as easily be shelved forever for any number of reasons. The largest, and most obvious, is where does he fit in the modern world? Are the underlying imperialist qualities of the flicks palatable to a modern and future audience? Does anybody really want to see Side of Beef continue to the role? Why does he have to be white?
Spurlock said:
Marvel is kicking ass, but their original products have been slammed lately.
Neither
John Carter of Mars or
The Lone Ranger are, of course, original properties. They were produced wholly under the Disney umbrella, but the company approached both projects wrong. Budgets and expectations sunk both properties, but that's to be expected with so many hands in the pot with all of the money involved.
Well, then.
If I were a betting man I wouldn't put money on any projects involving Indiana Jones to gain traction until 2020 at the earliest.
Moedred said:
Fox has distribution rights to 5 of the 6 Star Wars films until May 2020 (4K UHD ennealogy set due that fall?)
So? Unless an original, uncut copy makes its way onto home video there isn't much more Fox can do with them. They've wrung all the blood from that stone they'll be able to. Disney retains all rights to future film properties.
A short, amusing
read.
The Hollywood Reporter said:
McCarthy, the head of his white-shoe firm’s Los Angeles office, narrowed the task down to 290 primary, copyrighted characters. To sort through them all, he assembled a legal team of bona fide Star Wars fans. “I tried to find people in the office who ... didn’t have to spend time figuring out who Princess Leia was,” recalls McCarthy. “I was shocked by how many people knew the intricacies of whose father-in-law was married to whose sister.” The top-secret process — code names were employed to keep office chatter to a minimum — started in June 2012, and crunch time came during a six-week period beginning in August, when as many as 20 Skadden employees (from $500-an-hour partners to less expensive paralegals) pored over complex chain-of-title documents related to Star Wars and Lucasfilm.
And that's the heart of the matter.
'nuff said.