Ummmm. Huh.

[lithera]

Marvel is going to take a tactic from TV writing and gather a group of writers for their movies. Variety says, “... gathering of scribes will help Marvel come up with creative ways to launch its lesser-known properties, such as Black Panther, Cable, Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, Nighthawk and Vision.” Some of these characters would seem to easily hold a movie on their own. (Blade did three, for heaven's sake.) Others I have to blink. Cable? How do you even explain /that/ mess. He's Scott's son with Jean's clone who was sent into the future.... ARG! Head hurtings.

Even more boggling is what Nikki Finke reports: “Before the writers are even allowed to come in and meet, they must sign a non-disclosure agreement and a 70-page, non-negotiable contract. Among other things, the contract gives Marvel ownership over everything the writers create during the one year term of [the] deal, plus a first look and last refusal to any and all projects the writers have previously written or will write for 24 months in the future.” Damn. DAMN. No WAY would I sign that thing. Man. Not even for a potential $100K, which is what is rumored.

There was something else I was going to write about but I cannot remember what it was now, so it will come later, if at all.

Comments

[samy.livejournal.com]

Cable is simple.

"Soldier from future sent back to stop the rise of Apocalypse."

If it's a standalone movie, I doubt the fact that he's a son of Scott and Madelyne would even be mentioned, perhaps at most the sort of easter egglike Cap's shield in the Iron Man movie.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

If you want to do the whole man of mystery thing, you might do it but I can't see that being the way they go. I mean, Scott is freaking in the Woverine Origin's movie. They couldn't keep him out of a Cable movie.

[samy.livejournal.com]

Well, Scott can show up in a Wolverine movie without complicating the background. I suppose he could show up in the Cable movie too as a guest star as long as they didn't get into the background complications.

Personally I'd rather have more issue with Nighthawk. I'm not sure Kyle really has enough of a hook of his own, as a character, to differentiate him from Batman, Shadow et al.

I'd have minor concerns about Vision as a solo character since it has been tried (and succeeded) so very rarely, but the key conflict of the character is really pretty good. The anguish of the android who wants to be human is a great Pinocchio tale, very compelling, I bet it would work well as a movie.

[wandelrust.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was going to be my guess. "Time traveling mutant on a mission." Drop some reference points for the fanboys to pickup, and otherwise pitch it as "Terminator 2 meets Watchmen" or whatever.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

There is potential there. I guess I've just never been sold on Apocalypse. He's big and bad and scary but he's never interested me as a villain at all.

[samy.livejournal.com]

He's been written compellingly fairly rarely for somebody who's appeared as much as he has.

IMO, one of the very few times he's been written in an interesting manner was a Louise Simonson backup in, I think it was X-FACTOR #50, in which Apocalypse conflicted with Loki and outlined that the point of his philosophy was to toughen up mankind so they'd be strong enough to survive when the Celestials return to judge them.

I find that -- altruistic ends justify evil means -- to be a compelling gray area for a villain, something that is much easier to understand and sympathize with, than just the one-dimensional "the strong will survive to serve me" bwa-ha-ha villainy, which is what he's often reduced to.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

There are so many X-men villains who are so much more fun.

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

What does "last refusal" mean? I know what the right of first refusal is..

[lithera.livejournal.com]

A right of last refusal gives one party to a contract the right to match the terms the other party is willing to accept from a third party for some right, such as a license.

[candidgamera.livejournal.com]

Huh. Yeah, that's.. uh.. quite a contract there.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

No kidding.

[jeditigger.livejournal.com]

Mind-boggling for a writer to agree to that. Seriously. It's not even that much money if the writer's supposed to live in NYC.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That's not crazy I wont the lottery money at all.

[xnbach.livejournal.com]

So is Marvel claiming ownership of everything the writer's create, even works that have nothing to do with Marvel? That's insane

[lithera.livejournal.com]

There must be something I don't see here to get people to even consider this.

[jeditigger.livejournal.com]

I'd have to see the contract, and considering I'm going to see how one gets to throw one's hat in the ring, I might. But the "non-negotiable" bit makes me queasy, and I imagine that, as Marvel has its own production company, yes, it wants to see everything the writer does.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean, for me, that'd be totally insane. I was kinda wondering how you got to play in their sandbox, but I'd assume that the only people who'd be willing to sign that would be people who had no established writing career...and I'd have thought that Marvel would be looking for people who /did/ have credentials. I donno. Weird.

[littledrow.livejournal.com]

Wow. How very Disney of them. They make their animators sign a contract JUST like that. Can't even doodle without Disney owning it.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

...I can't imagine anyone signing that contract.

[lithera.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I have a hard time with it myself.