Sotiris wrote:Apparently, they don't mind licensing their characters. Just now, they gave the theatrical rights of "The Human Fly" to an independent studio. Personally, I don't think they should keep doing that. Even with less known or obscure characters.
It's actually not a recent development; supposedly the rights to this character haven't been at Marvel's for years. I seriously doubt they'd be inclined to start licensing their characters again (even those that are virtually unknown) after all they went through in the process of forming their own studio as a direct result of seeing their other properties prosper financially and/or fail creatively at Fox/Sony/Universal/LionsGate/New Line Cinema.
Sotiris wrote:It won't because the Marvel Cinematic Universe applies only to the live-action films produced by Marvel Studios.
Ah, but then I ask 'why not'?
When MCU first started out, they had plans of branching out to TV. TV show called "AKA Jessica Jones" was in serious development with full intention of it being incorporated in the MCU, but it failed to be picked up a couple of months ago. "Hulk" series was also (and may still be) in development. Also, new "Avengers" animated series (the one that will replace "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes") is rumored to be set in the same universe – Marvel's writer Jeph Loebe even went so far as to say:
...which will be a brand new and really extraordinary looking animated series dealing with the Avengers in that same world.
So there's really nothing stopping them from expanding to animation – unless it all comes down to the well-known "animation is for kids"-bias.
Super Aurora wrote:I recall when they first announced Disney buying Marvel, they reassured to Marvel fans that Disney would not meddle into Marvel's field and let Marvel handle their own characters and how they are presented.
The movie in someway seems to negate that promise.
Hello, we are Disney and Pixar, kings of broken promises and masters of deception, we're out of touch with reality and we like to change our minds A LOT.
"People accuse us of planting sexual subliminal and racist messages in our movies. So, instead if disputing, explaining or addressing them in any way, we will remove every instance of questionable content in its entirety. It totally won't look like we’re covering something up."
"Disney's Platinum collection consists of our 10 bestselling films on home video. Sorry, we meant to say 14. Yes, 14 is a special number."
"
Aladdin's DVD sales underperformed so we have removed it from the Diamond Edition line. No, wait, it's welcome back Aladdin, bye-bye Pongo."
"Following
Home on the Range we are completely stopping the production of hand-drawn films. JK, here's
Princess and the Frog for you."
"Our plan is to make hand-drawn films on a two-year basis. Kidding again, after
Winnie the Pooh you get nothing."
"After the release of
Tangled, we don't plan on producing any more films based on fairytales. Oh, wait,
Tangled was a success? Look what we brought back from "development hell":
Frozen,
Maleficent, and
Oz!"
"Here at Pixar we believe story is everything and we'll make sequels only if the story is good. Btw, have you seen our newest
Cars 2 clip?"
"Overload of low quality direct-to-video sequels, change in marketing focus, and neglecting artistic, historical and social significance of our studio/products in favour of financial factors have tarnished our reputation to the point of them hurting box-office results of our feature films, and public perception of us as a company has shifted from being seen as a leader in quality family entertainment, to pandering to tweens, toddlers and little girls only. It is clear to everyone that these sequels should never be publicly available (or at least not without serious limitations) or produced again, and that constant dumbing down of our products in order to pursue short-term results has to be stopped. But hey, here's our special limited "Buy 2, get 1 free" offer: Buy
Cinderella II and
Cinderella III special deluxe editions and you'll get a free copy of
Cinderella, which includes a sneak peek at our newest, 7th addition to the Tinker Bell series,
Tinker Bell and the Magical Secret Mystery movie, and an entire episode of
Sofia the First! Also included in the deal is Cinderella’s tiara for that special princess inside of you."
So I'm not at all surprised at this whole Marvel thing.
DisneyAnimation88 wrote:You're not being paranoid at all, all of your points are reasonable and I think we all share your concerns to some extent.
Thanks, it's reassuring to know I'm not the only one feeling this way.
DisneyAnimation88 wrote:The way I look at it is, as I've said before, is that if the character is obscure enough then it can be made to fit into the Disney canon. When rumours of this film first began I immediately thought of an Iron Man or Hulk or Thor film under the WDAS banner and the thought really did make me angry. But over time, I've kind of come to the conclusion that (sorry for repeating myself) if a Marvel property is obscure enough that it can be made to fit within the WDAS canon then I would be willing to give it a chance.
Neal wrote:What the eff is the difference between adapting a novel (which Walt did multiple times) or adapting a comic book? Both already have a developed universe, characters, themes... the only difference is the literary medium.
... there is no difference.
Neal, you're totally right, on a basic level, this really isn't all that different from Disney adapting
Hunchback or
The Rescuers or any other of dozens of Disney films based on novels/fairytales. The key difference, however, is that, unlike
Hunchback or
101 Dalmatians, Marvel's comic book universe is pretty much interconnected. There pretty much isn't a character who hasn't guest-starred in another character's book, major events encompass all titles, and crossovers occur on a regular basis. And AFAIK, Margery Sharp never wrote a story where Miss Bianca time travels to early 20th century, joins Wendy, Michael, John, and Peter Pan on their journey to Never Land in order to obtain some rare plum that only grows in Tiger Lily's garden, so she could save the life of her paternal grandfather, Basil the mouse detective, and effectively secure her existence in her original timeline, that is considered to be in continuity and canon with all three literary works (fan-fiction notwithstanding
). And that's just one silly example of the level of interaction of Marvel characters in a single narrative, applied to Disney characters.
What I'm saying is, if this adaptation of a lesser-known comic book title is successful, who's to say Disney won't try the same with Fantastic Four or Spider-Man. Like
Super Aurora implied, we still don't know the full extent of Marvel/Sony or Marvel/Fox deals, so it is actually possible that, say, X-Men animated feature film can actually be produced by Disney and exist alongside Fox's X-Men films (James Bond films
Never Say Never Again and
Thunderball come to mind). Or, say, BH6 gets made, and Disney makes DTV sequels to it that feature X-Men/FF; it wouldn't be a theatrical release so Disney would be allowed to make it. The possibilities are endless, but that doesn't mean it's all for the best. If they happen to continue adapting Marvel stories it might lead up to creation (no matter how informal it may be) of another canon within the Disney DAC canon – a Marvel Animated Cinematic Universe of sorts. If they really want to adapt a comic book published by Marvel, I'd much rather they adapt something that's contained to its own universe, something akin to
Kick-Ass,
300 or
Scott Pilgrim.
And that's pretty much what bothers me. Marvel has their own studio now; they don't need this type of business deal anymore. In fact, it's pretty much certain Disney came up with the whole idea on their own in their ongoing quest to win over male demographic
. Not to mention that any Disney/Marvel adaptation would have to be severely neutered and watered down (as
DisneyAnimation88 said), even more so than any other studio's. So they make BH6/Fantastic Four/Spider-Man, advertise it as a Marvel film, both Disney and Marvel fans see it, Disney fans eat it up (we're not that bothered by differences from the source material, as evident by the near-universal love for everything from
Snow White to
Winnie the Pooh), (some) Marvel fans end up hating it, and end up projecting their discontent to other future Disney/Marvel films that dare venture away from the comic book. Suddenly,
Guardians of the Galaxy becomes "cheesy and Disneyfied" and
Thor 3 becomes "campy and childish", and Disney will be blamed for meddling into Marvel's business and having negative impact on it, which was what everyone feared from the moment Disney announced their acquisition of Marvel.
Either way, like many of you have said, this is still all in the planning stage, and nothing has been confirmed yet, so there's not much point in fretting over it. Regardless of my own feelings for the project, I'm really anxious to see where this is all going. Besides, even though
Super Aurora said that Marvel fans don't care much about this team anyway, from what I've read of their reactions, they actually seem to be surprisingly positive, and if they're fine with it... well, I guess it's somewhat okay then.
