Many viewers have probably wondered why they see the Marvel slogan at the beginning of tons of movies, but they aren’t remotely related to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Or maybe viewers have seen more than one interpretation of the same character in different movies, or that they’ve heard the same characters or alien race mentioned that have appeared in a completely different series.
Though most superhero movies that have been released in the past 22 years started out as a Marvel comic book, Marvel Studios didn’t come to actually making its own movies until they had already licensed out the rights to many of their most popular characters. This has led to countless franchises, reboots, and most of all, audience confusion.
1998 - New Line Cinema Gets The Licensing Rights To Blade
Marvel first handed over their character licensing rights in 1998, when they gave Blade to New Line Cinema. This was great for Marvel as they didn’t have any financial involvement or worry about the development or the production of the movie, but they would still get a cut of the movie’s profit and reap in the rewards regardless. New Line Cinema produced three Blade movies, but the rights to the character have since gone back to Marvel Studios, and the studio is currently developing a more family friendly version of the vampire.
2000 - 20th Century Fox Gets The Licensing Rights To X-Men
Two years after Blade’s success, Marvel licensed the rights to X-Men to 20th Century Fox, which was a major deal for the studio as the series is a massive money maker and has brought in billions of dollars as the characters include not only the X-Men, but Deadpool too. though there were a lot of different actors who almost starred in the first X-Men movie, the final product resulted in Hugh Jackman being cast as the now iconic Wolverine.
At a similar time, 20th Century Fox also procured the rights to Fantastic Four and their villains. However, the studio hasn’t seen as much success with those, as 2005’s Fantastic Four and it’s sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer were critically panned, and the 2015 reboot was a box office failure.
2002 - Sony Gets The Licensing Rights To Spider-Man
With all of the unbelievable updates getting announced about the next Spider-Man movie, particularly the news about Jamie Foxx reprising his role as Electro, which would change the MCU in so many different ways, the rights to the web-slinger are brain-fryingly confusing.
As Sony has the rights to make Spider-Man movies, they have made three different series, starting with Toby Maquire’s trilogy, then the failed Amazing Spider-Man series, and now with Tom Holland’s take on Peter Parker. This licensing agreement includes all of Spider-Man’s villains, which means that Marvel don’t have the ability to use those characters unless a further deal is reached.
2003 - Universal Gets The Rights To Hulk
Many believe that 2008’s The Incredible Hulk is a sequel to Ang Lee’s Hulk, but the two are completely unrelated and the 2003 movie is actually produced by Universal Pictures. It is the final Marvel character to be given to another studio before Marvel created its own movie studio. Universal didn’t take advantage of the character like Sony did with Spider-Man or 20th Century Fox did with X-Men, as Hulk was the only movie that the studio made before the rights went back to Marvel.
2004 - Marvel Studios Begins
In 2004, Marvel looked at all of the movies that were getting produced and making hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, particularly Spider-Man, as the movie held the record for biggest opening weekend of all time, and they wondered why they weren’t making the movies themselves.
Though it cost them nothing and they were making money without any risk, the slice of the pie was substantially smaller compared to what they would have been bringing in if they produced the movies themselves. That’s when Marvel Studios opened its doors and the company stopped giving characters to other studios.
2008 - Marvel Studios Gets The Rights To The Hulk Back
In 2008, Marvel Studios got the rights back to the Hulk from Universal Pictures, and they used it to make the first movie in the Marvel cinematic universe, The Incredible Hulk. However, not only do people think it’s a sequel to Hulk from 2003, but they also don’t realise that it’s officially a part of the MCU, as it’s Edward Norton who plays the titular character instead of Mark Ruffalo, who has played him in every movie since The Avengers in 2012.
2012 - 20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios Share Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch Rights
The introduction of Quicksilver in to the MCU in Avengers: Age of Ultron may have been confusing to many, as just one year before, a much different version of the same character appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Though they are much better known as mutants than superheroes, Marvel Studios are still allowed to use the characters, the Marvel movies just aren’t allowed to call them mutants or refer to the fact that they are Magneto’s children. There are a lot of weird facts about their relationship, but Marvel decided to keep them as siblings, as opposed to Quicksilver riding solo in the X-Men series.
2015 - Sony Makes A Deal With Marvel For Spider-Man To Be In The MCU
To enable Spidey to join the Avengers, Sony and Marvel Studios struck up a deal together where Sony retains the rights to keep making movies of Spider-Man (and his villains,) but it’s still part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Sony still finances the movies and they do still have full creative control over the Spider-Man movies, it just requires the two studios to work together.
2017 - 20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios Share Skrull and Kree Rights
There’s still a lot to know about the Skrulls that wasn’t in Captain Marvel, and that may have something to do with the fact that 20th Century Fox currently had some form of rights to them at the time. It was also rumored to be the reason that it was the Chithari that served as Loki’s minions instead of the Skrulls in The Avengers. But as Guardians of the Galaxy features a number of Kree characters and they are the anti-heroes of Captain Marvel, it’s safe to say that the characters/race are in the same situation as Quicksilver and Scarlett Witch, as both studios can use them.
2018 - Sony’s Venom Begins A New Cinematic Universe
Though Venom was critically panned and it has inspired a lot of hilarious memes, the movie was a massive box office success, as it made of $850 million worldwide. Sony has been trying to create a cinematic universe of Spidey’s villains for a long time now, but with the release and success of Venom, it’s likely that audiences will get that and it’ll be completely unrelated to the MCU.
Venom is where it gets confusing for the movie universes, as it reportedly shares the same universe as the current Spider-Man movies, but not with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Unless Marvel Studios tries to cut another deal with Sony about including the character in the MCU, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll see the head-eater crossover with the Avengers anytime soon.
2020 - Disney Buys 20th Century Fox
In 2019, Disney acquired 20th Century Fox, which includes all of its entertainment assets. It has led to tons of different confirmations and speculations, but anything is possible as Marvel Studios now has access to many of the characters it has been trying to get its hands on for more than ten years. More likely than anything is that Marvel Studios will reboot the X-Men series and incorporate it into the MCU, but only time will tell.