Marvel Studios didn't always exist. Before the company took making its movies into its own hands, the rights to several franchises were all owned by several different studios. In fact, many of Marvel's major properties are still owned by studios other than Marvel.
For instance, Sony owns the Spider-Man movies, while Fox has the rights to the X-Men films. It's one of the reasons why Marvel hasn't planned for any gigantic crossovers between all of its different characters, but it's also led to a number of less-than-ideal situations for both parties whenever Marvel tries to take back the rights to its characters.
It seems that recent negotiations over the rights to the Fantastic Four franchise are the worst so far. According to a report from Bleeding Cool News, it seems that Marvel may have outright cancelled the Fantastic Four comic books as a result of negotiations with 20th Century Fox.
Reports claiming that Marvel had begun ordering its merchandising partners to cancel work on Fantastic Four products surfaced this past summer, though the creators behind the books claimed that the series would continue on as long as the comics continued to sell. Then, on Sunday afternoon, a posting from the Hachette Book Group was discovered and all but confirmed that the Fantastic Four would no longer be in print following summer 2015.
The posting described a trade paperback titled "The End is Fourever," and will be a triple-sized issue depicting the end of Marvel's first family. Here's the description:
"THE END IS FOUREVER! Witness the closing act on the First Family of the Marvel Universe! THE INVADERS meet the FANTASTIC FOUR as the hunt for REED RICHARDS and the missing kids of the FUTURE FOUNDATION continues. Meanwhile the mastermind behind everything unveils his ultimate plan. But how does FRANKLIN RICHARDS factor in? And how does this all lead to...The END?! Collecting FANTASTIC FOUR #642-644 and the Triple Sized Final Issue 645!"
The report on Bleeding Cool News claims that Marvel CEO Ian Perlmutter was less than enthused with the results of negotiations with Fox over the rights to the Fantastic Four, and subsequently began preparing for the end of one of Marvel's oldest comics. While shutting down an entire series (and one that Marvel was founded on, no less) seems extreme, it's entirely possibly that's exactly what's happened. Seeing as how the Fantastic Four comics have struggled to consistently bring in sales for years, it's no where near as huge a loss for Marvel as it could have been.
The Fantastic Four films have been anything but successful, and plans for a reboot were announced merely two years after the second film, Rise of the Silver Surfer, bombed in theaters. Since then, The Fantastic Four has been moving forward, though it seems that Perlmutter isn't exactly happy about it.
Marvel has yet to release a statement about the listing from Hachette, though all evidence seems to suggest that the Fantastic Four series doesn't have much time left in the world of comic books.
