At first it seemed coincidental that the X-Men were fading in popularity, while the Avengers were rising.
Then there was a conspiracy theory that Marvel, which was bought by Disney in 2009, was downplaying the mutant superheroes because their film rights were owned by 20th Century Fox.
After all, X-Men comics of the past decade have featured the decimation of the mutant population, a negative portrayal of the team in a big crossover in which they battled the Avengers, the death of star hero Wolverine, and the retconning of two popular characters to cut their ties to the X-Men. Meanwhile, the number of X-Men series seemed to be gradually declining, while there were fewer and fewer licensed X-Men products.
The theory was all but confirmed last summer, with reports that Disney forbade the creation of new X-Men characters and with senior vice president of publishing Tom Brevoort telling a fan: “If you had two things, and on one you earned 100% of the revenues from the efforts that you put into making it, and the other you earned a much smaller percentage for the same amount of time and effort, you’d be more likely to concentrate more heavily on the first, wouldn’t you?”
It’s astonishing how far Disney is going to bury the X-Men
5 comments
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It’s awful how they treat these Marvel properties imo. There’s a reason the rights that were sold off were sold off- they were the most popular characters. And now the comics are changing to suit the movies and push that agenda, which is just spitting in the face of longtime fans so they can make more money and get the rights- which they fair and square SOLD- back to them.
And shoot me, I think First Class/DOFP are infinitely superior to anything in the MCU. But comics are comics and movies are movies. Sure, the best parts of each should definitely cross over, like Harley Quinn going from BTAS to comics, but to downplay comics and restrict creative freedom to push a film rights based movement? Not on, in my eyes.
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Agreed
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It would be nice if it were possible to go back to days when money was a simple by-product of an art, but we are far removed from them. The senior vice president made an understandable argument from his point of view, however, the decision to stifle the potential growth of a well-known and beloved franchise shows they have completely lost sight of why these characters are so important to their supporters in the first place.
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I hope the new x-men and deadpool movies kill it at the box office
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Not surprised at all. In the end, this is just a business.
