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Marvel Lawsuit: Marvel Studios, early known as “Marvel Films” from 1993 to 1996. Marvel Studios is an American Films and Television Series producing company that so far has released 25 Films creating their own Universe for superheroes known as Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

From Iron-Man in 2008 to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings in 2021, each and every movie shares a continuity relation between them, and Marvel Studios has also released 4 TV series on Disney+ from Wanda Vision to What If? and these series also share the continuity relation with the movies.

Walt Disney, majorly known as Disney, was founded in 1923 by brothers Roy O. Disney and Walt. Marvel Studios is also a part of Disney, and apart from Marvel Studios, Walt Disney also owns numerous amount of film productions, such as Pixar, 20th Century Animation, 20th Century Studios, Lucasfilm, and Searchlight Pictures.

Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Company have both been working together for a very long time of period, and together they both have created the most successful Superhero Universe in the world known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).

But in recent times, Disney and Marvel Studios or Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) both have been under constant Lawsuits.

Love-Hate Relationship of Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures: Marvel Lawsuit

Everyone who is a fan of MCU movies knows about the love-hate relationship between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, over to acquire rights of Spider-Man, one of the most favourite superheroes ever created, though there is no Marvel lawsuit still they both have a very interesting history. Sony Pictures acquired the rights to Spider-man to create a 2 films series, but that project never got released.

Steven Spielberg was intended to direct those Spider-man movies, but he turned down that offer, and the series was never released than before Sam Raimi’s Spider-man trilogy starring Tobey Maguire in the lead as Spider-man, and then Marc Webb rebooted the series with Andrew Garfield in the Lead as Spider-man.

Spider-man originally is the character of Marvel Comics created by Stan Lee.

Marvel Studios always wanted to acquire rights to Spider-man because of the immense popularity of the character amongst fans, but Sony always refused to transfer the rights to Spider-man to MCU. Finally, in 2016 MCU made a deal with Sony Pictures to feature Spider-man in MCU movies. Spider-man made his debut in MCU movies in 2016 in Captain America – Civil War.

Since then, MCU has made 6 movies with Spider-man, of which 3 were his solo movies, of which Spider-man: No Way Home is scheduled to release on 17th December 2021. MCU still does not have the legal rights for Spider-man, but it has made a deal with Sony Pictures to feature the character in their movies.

Currently, MCU is also trying to feature the character of Venom in their movies and make a crossover between Spider-man and Venom starring Tom Holland and Tom Hardy in their respective roles of Spider-man and Venom.

Currently, Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures have agreed on a new deal for Spider-man in which Sony is allowing MCU to use the character of Spider-man for 2 more movies, including Spider-man: No Way Home and one more movie, which is not announced for now.

And probably MCU will end the character of Spider-man after this deal, or they might come with another new deal to use the character of Spider-man for the more upcoming years. Now MCU has created the multiverse, so there are also chances that MCU will send Spider-man into another dimension of the Multiverse where Sony Pictures will continue the story of our friendly neighbourhood Spider-man.

It All Started With Black Widow: Marvel Lawsuit

Black Widow’s Solo movie releases in 2021 after a very long wait, the movie got delayed several times because of the Covid-19 Pandemic. The character of Black Widow died in MCU in 2019 in Avengers: Endgame.

Black Widow became a very popular character over time in MCU, so the studio decided to give the character a proper see off, so they decided to make a solo movie on the character to give a proper farewell to the character.

Soon after Black Widow was released in theatres on 9th July 2021, Scarlett Johansson, who reprised the character of Black Widow from the start of the MCU, filed a lawsuit against Disney for breaching the contract.

Scarlett Johansson said that according to her contract Black Widow was intended to release on the Disney+ streaming platform after 1 month from the release date of the movie, but Disney released it early on their streaming platform, which caused Scarlett Johansson loss which she could have made with the theatrical run of the movie.

Where Disney denied all of Scarlett’s claims and said that they had not breached any contract and, by releasing the film on their Streaming platform, earned more profit for the actor.

According to the reports, the lawsuit between Scarlett Johansson and Disney has been settled down now. Though the details of the deal are not disclosed yet but yes, the lawsuit is over now.

The End of MCU? Marvel Lawsuit

There is a very prominent chance that we might witness the end of MCU real soon because the relatives of all the writers and creators who have created some of the iconic characters of MCU, like Spider-man, Iron-man, Black Widow, and Doctor Strange, are trying to acquire full rights to those characters.

Disney has filed a lawsuit against all of them to claim all the rights to themselves by stating that those writers and creators created those iconic characters under Disney’s contracts. Thus, Disney has full rights to those characters.

This is the most recent lawsuit Disney and Marvel Studios find themselves in after the lawsuit filed by Scarlett Johansson. Disney and Marvel Studios are like a Lawsuit magnet. After the immense success of the studio and the films they produce, now almost everyone wants to have a piece of that immense success.

If Disney loses this Marvel lawsuit, then there are chances that we will never see our favourite characters in any future MCU movies, or even if they feature in MCU movies, then the studio has to share the profits with those who have rights to those characters.

Disney will try its best to settle this lawsuit outside of court, but we can only speculate things for now and what happens in the future. Only time can tell that. All we know for now is that the future of MCU is in grave danger if Disney loses this Marvel Lawsuit.

The Future of MCU: Marvel Lawsuit

MCU has numerous movies lined up for MCU Phase 4 & 5, “Upcoming MCU Superhero Movies” and Spider-man: No Way Home would be the last movie of MCU to releases in December 2021. Currently, Disney and Marvel Studios are at the peak of their success by delivering blockbuster after blockbuster.

The recently released MCU movie, Shang-Chi and the legend of 10 Rings have become the highest-grossing movie of MCU of the Pandemic period surpassing movies like Black Widow and Black Panther. Fans are totally loving how MCU Phase 4 is turning out now.

Disney has been into such types of lawsuits many times, and every time the lawsuit has been settled outside the court, and we hope this time something like this happens too because it can affect the whole MCU if Disney loses this Marvel Lawsuit.

Disney and Marvel Studios have a very bright future ahead, and they have the full potential to create the biggest blockbusters of history. And in the past, Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing movie ever, surpassing the lifetime run of Titanic and Avatar, but Avatar reclaimed its place as the #1 movie by re-releasing the movie.

Recently, Marvel has released the 8th Episode of What If..? Marvel’s first animated series, and on the coming Wednesday, the 9th episode of the series will arrive, which will be the season finale for the What If…? series.

The Final Mystery of Character Ownership: Marvel Lawsuit

In History, there was one brave man “Steve Gerber” who filed a lawsuit against the character of “Howard the Duck” to claim all the rights on that character. According to the 1976 copyright act, Marvel stated that Steve created the character of Howard the Duck under their payroll, and he created that character at the expense of the company. That is why the right of that character belongs to Disney.

Steve Gerber later also acknowledged that Disney is the rightful owner of the character of Howard the Duck. Before the copyright act of 1976, Disney used to write a note at the back of their issued cheques in which they clearly state that whoever is receiving this cheque acknowledges that they were paid under hired for work.

Now in the present time, the direct relatives of the previous comic-book character creators are saying that they should get the full rights of those characters because that character was created by their direct relative, but Disney denies all these claims.

Disney clearly states that anyone who has created anything for Disney, Disney has paid them their full fees for their work, and also they created that character at Disney’s expense that is why Disney is the rightful owner of all the characters.

There is also a past instance where DC gave the right for the character of Superman to their creators but only because those creators were going through a financial crisis and DC only gave them rights till they were alive and after that, DC will reclaim all the rights for the character of Superman.

Currently, Disney has filed a Marvel Lawsuit for the ownership of their characters, but if Disney loses this Marvel Lawsuit, then there will be total chaos.

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