Rights Snares Had Spidey Suitors Weaving
(2002)
|
RIGHTS SNARES HAD SPIDEY SUITORS WEAVING (2002) Error
works to Sony's advantage By JONATHAN BING Blockbuster
franchises often come with crushing backend deals. Not
"Spider-Man". Thanks to a clerical error in 1985 by lawyers for
Cannon films, Sony Pictures is walking off with the lion's share of the loot. The saga, as
chronicled in Dan Raviv's history of Marvel Enterprises, "Comics
Wars," just published by Broadway, began in 1985, when Menahem Golan and
Yoram Globus' Cannon Films bought film rights from Marvel for $225,000. Carolco later
bought "Spidey" rights from Golan for $5 million, bringing James
Cameron aboard to helm the pic. But Carolco went belly-up and its library
passed to MGM. Then Sony and Viacom, which had bought video and TV rights,
respectively, lay claim to the franchise. The picture grew even murkier in
1998, when Marvel filed Chapter 11. Then Marvel
lawyer Carole Handler found a legal loophole: The original sale to Cannon
hadn't been registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, so rights reverted to Marvel. Marvel then sold
"Spider-Man" to Sony for close to $10 million and a small part of
the gross. It was a sweet
deal. "Spider-Man" was out of development hell, and MGM and Viacom
didn't get a piece of the pic. Compare that to
pics like "The Grinch" and "Men In Black," whose profits
were split several ways. Even Harvey and Bob Weinstein managed to wrangle 5%
of the first-dollar gross of "Lord of the Rings." When the trilogy
is complete, that could come to $50 million. Now that's spider sense. 19 May 2002 © 2009 Variety * * * Link to this
page : www.cannon.org.uk/spiderman.htm |
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