To say how miserable Marvel is, it would definitely be as miserable as "washed by the water of the Yellow River".

Everyone knows that in the history of comics in North America, Marvel and DC have always been equally divided. Although other comic companies have appeared, there is no way to compare with these two companies in terms of influence.

During Marvel's peak period, there was actually a chance to acquire DC, but then Marvel didn't take a fancy to DC, and then DC became cheaper than Time Warner!

Later, DC, which was backed by Time Warner, began to prosper, and Marvel also had to find a good backer if it wanted to make movies. At that time, it found New World Pictures. In 1986, New World Pictures acquired the then-floating Marvel Comics.

Marvel, established Marvel Entertainment Group, and had the intention of producing movies.

DC's "Superman" next door is doing great at the box office, and Marvel is jealous of it, but there is nothing they can do about it. DC was acquired by Time Warner as early as the 1960s, and its backers are rich and powerful, so DC has no worries about making movies.

And the new "backer" Marvel has found, New World Pictures, is just a small company. It can at most create publicity and marketing for you and provide some convenient connections in the film industry.

Therefore, if Marvel wants to make a movie, it can only discuss it with other film companies. If the latter wants to make a movie, then the characters must be licensed to the other party. This is the origin of "selling heroes". In the 1980s, Marvel entered the film industry.

Under the leadership of Stan Lee, who was the CEO of Marvel Comics at the time, Marvel came into contact with a large number of film studios, which was also the first wave of Marvel's "selling heroes".

During this period, 1986's "The God of War" and 1989's "The Punisher" were all movies that sold character copyrights. Unfortunately, the movies produced by these inferior companies had poor box office and reputation. The 1990's "Captain America" ​​and

In the end, 1994's "Fantastic Four" never even had a chance to be released in theaters, and could only be found on videotape.

No way, the founder of the parent company New World Pictures is called Roger Corman. Movie fans should be familiar with this movie. He is the king of Hollywood B-movies and is good at producing low-cost "exploitation movies."

Although this man sold the company in 1983, with such a former boss here, it is not difficult to understand why those Marvel movies at that time were not popular.

Stan Lee also didn’t have a temper. The general environment at that time was like this. All major companies planned to make superheroes into violent maniacs or monsters.

Li Feng had already mentioned it when he and Lu Lu were talking about Spider-Man before, which shows Marvel's helplessness.

In early 1989, capitalist Ronald Perelman spent $82.5 million to acquire Marvel Entertainment Group, which was originally owned by New World Pictures. As a result, Marvel's bad days came.

This Perelman is a layman who knows nothing about marketing and hype. In the past two years, he led Marvel to go public, acquired shares in the toy company Toy Biz, and started buying comics to save character cards.

Due to the "face-to-face" marketing, where you can buy and buy everywhere, and the comics industry was impacted by movies and television in the 1990s, the sales of Marvel Comics plummeted by 70%, and they were once so poor that they couldn't even open the pot.

When the boss saw that the limelight was not right, he immediately transformed and vigorously developed movies in the hope of turning the tide. Among them, the film department "Marvel Movies" was also established at this time, in 1993, but it was still called Marvel Film at that time, and he began to sell characters everywhere.

Copyright behavior is the climax of Marvel’s second wave of “selling characters”.

But after selling so many of its own sons, Marvel still couldn't survive. In 1996, Marvel filed for bankruptcy.

In December 1996, Perelman packed up and left, and Marvel reorganized its business and merged with the toy company Toy Biz. The director of the latter, Avi Arad, took charge of Marvel, but it was still poor.

However, at this time, Marvel had begun to cooperate extensively with major companies on film projects.

Because Marvel Studios, which had just been established at this time, had nothing to offer and no ability to independently develop movies, it made agreements with other companies, "You make movies, and I provide characters," and aggressively sold hero copyrights.

But in the past 10 years, the treatment of superheroes in other companies has also seen the treatment of superheroes. Those outsiders don’t know shit. The scripts they write are either R-rated horror movies or tough guy action movies. They film the Hulk as Schwarzenegger. Is this okay?

Remarkable?

In order to avoid the "barbaric growth" of its own hero IP, Marvel has an extra thought this time. It is not just "you make the movie and I provide the characters", we need to have closer contact with your company and intervene in all aspects.

To put it simply, Marvel Studios participates in the movie, provides inspiration, serves as a consultant, and limits (corrects) the style to prevent the characters from going off track.

In this way, although Marvel will not interfere with your creation, it can at least ensure that the final effect of the movie is a "superhero movie" and not a mess.

The "correction of style" mentioned above, in addition to character suggestions, there is also a very important decision: the story of Marvel heroes should be based on comic plots, which is very rare. You know, at that time, DC's "Superman"

"Although the "Batman" series is adapted from comics, the stories are all original and the plot is completely different from the comics.

You know, these cooperations just mentioned are almost free services from Marvel!

At that time, Marvel Studios was in a state of poverty. In order to actively promote Marvel superhero movies, it had to beg for help. This is the way Hollywood survives.

Therefore, "Blade" produced by New Line in 1998 was the first superhero movie developed with the help of Marvel Studios after its establishment. It grossed 70 million in North American box office and was the dark horse of the year.

Subsequently, in 2000, Fox's "X-Men" grossed US$157 million at the North American box office, becoming the first Marvel movie to exceed US$100 million locally, and also grossed US$300 million globally.

These two movies made North American audiences realize that this was called a "Marvel superhero movie", which was different from the previous "Superman" and "Batman" films.

It also allows audiences around the world to discover that these comic book heroes they have never heard of are actually quite good when made into movies.

Everyone is relatively familiar with the subsequent story. After the havoc of 911, superheroes took on the role of spiritual nourishment and savior for the people. Sony's "Spider-Man" eventually took over the world with a box office of 800 million, and superhero movies suddenly emerged.

And all of this is the credit of Avi Arad. At that time, Kevin Feige was just Avi Arad's assistant.

Avi Arad is Kevin Feige's boss, and the latter is the real manipulator of MCU, and for the first time he figured out how to use "Easter eggs" to show the connections between different movies without destroying the story.

idea.

It can be seen that the "movie universe", one of the greatest ideas in film history, was not someone's idea. It was Avi Arad's creative inspiration and Kevin Feige's execution. The former planted trees and the next will enjoy the shade.

In fact, at this time, not only Li Feng was thinking about Marvel, but Marvel was also facing many problems.

Marvel, which has decided to develop its own movies, naturally faces the biggest problem at this time, which is lack of money!

And now they have put the filming schedule on the schedule. After many studies, they finally decided to make "Iron Man" their first movie in the Marvel Universe!

If "Iron Man" makes a profit, then Marvel will skyrocket; if "Iron Man" fails, then Marvel will... probably be gone.

First of all, Marvel Studios confirmed the director of this movie, Jon Favreau, also known as Happy in the movie "Iron Man".

Everyone knows that Hollywood movies are governed by a producer system. As the current helmsman of Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige will naturally serve as the producer of "Iron Man".

After confirming the director, they began to discuss the choice of the film's leading actor and soul character Tony Stark, as well as the choice of Pepper Potts.

"Rachel has rejected my invitation!" Jon Favreau sat in his seat, looking a little decadent. After confirming to take over the film "Iron Man", although Jon Favreau has not yet found

I have a suitable candidate for Iron Man in my mind, but I already have a candidate for Pepper Potts.

It's Rachel McAdams who starred in "Wedding Crashers".

Unfortunately, Rachel McAdams didn't like the movie very much, so she declined Jon Favreau's invitation.

Jon Favreau could only express his helplessness about this.

Kevin Feige was sitting in the main seat, also scratching his head a little, and said: "Some actors have expressed interest in this movie, but his salary..."

Kevin Feige didn’t say what happened next, but Jon Favreau also knew that Marvel was tightening its belt in the production of "Iron Man", and those who expressed interest in Tony Stark

The actors are basically big-name actors, such as Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage, but their salaries are obviously not what Marvel can afford now.

At the same time, the most important thing is that Marvel is almost out of money.

Prior to this, Kevin Feige had contacted a number of Wall Street investment institutions and wanted to use Marvel's superhero copyrights as collateral for loans.

But as Marvel's most popular "Spider-Man" is now sold to Sony, other popular heroes are not under Marvel's name. There are only some second-rate characters left. They are not very optimistic about Marvel's this one.

plan.

After Marvel's three major surges in selling heroes, the superheroes that Marvel still owns can only be considered second-rate in popularity.

The heroes sold for the third time are basically clearance sales, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Punisher, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Deadpool, Iron Fist, Humanoid, Vampire Morbius, etc., they

The contract is still the famous "5-year new film".

To put it bluntly, these are the roles that have been left over and no one wants them...

And the Iron Man that Marvel has decided on now, before the movie came out, was actually just a second-rate character in Marvel comics, only better than the hero that was sold for the third time.

Belongs to the second rate.

In the 1990s, the two heroes "Iron Man" and "Hulk" were bought by Universal Pictures. After Iron Man was bought by Universal Pictures, it was not taken seriously. At that time, Stewart, the director of "The Jumping Corpse"

Gordon planned to direct, but as soon as he heard it, he knew that it was still a low-budget B-level movie. Of course, it was not filmed, and nothing happened after that.

By 1996, the rights to Iron Man were sold to 20th Century Fox.

Fox hopes to make it into a blockbuster film, and begins to attract investment and cast a wide net.

Not long after, the first big name arrived, Nicolas Cage!

This guy is interested in playing Stark.

Then in 1998, a bigger celebrity came, Tom Cruise!

He is set to star as Stark and could serve as a producer.

When Stan Lee saw it, he accepted everyone who came!

So he wrote the script himself and co-wrote it with the screenwriter of "Enemy Robot". The villain in the script is the big-headed ghost "Murdok".

However, Fox didn't like this story, so he found another god - the ruffian Quentin! Fox hoped to let him rewrite the script, and also intended to let him be the director!

But none of this was put into action because Fox felt that it had too many superhero rights to film, and the rights to Iron Man were sold to New Line Cinema in early 2000.

New Line Cinema really liked Stan Lee's original script, but they didn't have time to film it: New Line Cinema was busy filming "Blade" and "Lord of the Rings" and had no energy, and secondly, Marvel Studios was negotiating with Fox and Sony about "The Lord of the Rings".

"Spider-Man" and "X-Men" are playing fiercely, and they don't have time to care about Stark.

In 2001, New Line Cinema planned to restart the "Iron Man" project, but this version was still not filmed because something went wrong with the director and screenwriter.

It is worth mentioning that this version of the script at that time included a plot in which Nick Fury appeared as a guest character on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., and the script consultant at the time was a big Iron Man fan named Joss Whedon.

The same one who directed "Avengers 1 and 2".

Now that Marvel has acquired Iron Man again, it is preparing to make this movie the first movie in the Marvel Universe!

The problem facing Kevin Feige now is that he has no money and no one.

Except for Kevin Feige as the producer and Jon Favreau as the director, there is nothing left.

"It seems that actors can only be recruited openly in Hollywood now!" Kevin Feige said.
To be continued...