So Walt Disney buys Marvel for $4 billion and they’re in the clear to make more and more trillions eventually, right?
Not quite so fast. A potential wrench has been thrown in those plans by the estate of Jack Kirby, the venerable comic-book artist credited with co-creating many of Marvel’s most famous super heroes including most of The Avengers, Marvel Studios’ flagship project.
Kirby’s heirs are seeking to reclaim the rights to the characters and last week sent legal notices of copyright termination to Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Marvel, Disney and others making films and other forms of entertainment based on the characters.
Basically the estate is seeking to regain copyrights to the characters by 2014 and this is the head’s up warning.
Kirby is credited with co-creating “The X-Men,” “The Fantastic Four,” “Captain America,” and “The Hulk” among many, many others and was also deeply involved with “Thor” and “Iron Man” (essentially most of the key players in “The Avengers” story).
The New York Times notes that the Disney/Marvel deal is not complete, that Disney shareholders have to agree first and suggest that sticky and convoluted legal rights to Marvel characters (like this very example), could potentially cloud their decision (though, in the end there’s probably too much money at stake for them to pass on this).
Obviously this could be a thorn in the side to several studios. Here’s some potential fallout via the NYT.
Under copyright law, the author or his heirs can begin a process to regain copyrights a certain period of years after the original grant. If Mr. Kirby’s four children were to gain the copyright to a co-created character, they might become entitled to a share of profits from films or other properties using it. They might also find themselves able to sell rights to certain characters independently of Marvel, Disney, or the various studios that have licensed the Marvel properties for their hit films.
Whether any of this comes to pass however, remains to be seen for now. File under slowly developing. No need to sound the nerd alarms just yet.