Saturday, January 9, 2010

"Spider-Man 4" Delay: Legal, Not Creative, Issues

Have you heard the news that production on the Spider-Man 4 movie sequel, which is scheduled to be released in May 2011, was suddenly halted last week? When this news first broke, I read that production had been stopped because the studio did not like script. In particular, that they did not like Sam Raimi's preferred choice of villain, The Vulture. (That's him at left.)

But The National Enquirer is now reporting HERE that the real reason for the delay is that Disney (which just bought Marvel comics last year) is now going to Federal court to clarify their ownership rights to many of Marvel Comics' most famous characters, including Spider-Man, who were originally co-created in the early 1960s by legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby. (I previously wrote HERE about meeting him (along with, bizarrely, David Carradine) in 1988, and posted a photo of all of us together.)

Mr. Kirby died in 1994 at the age of 76, but his heirs began trying last September to invalidate Marvel's copyrights on the super-hero characters he had helped create 50 years ago now. And Disney filed a lawsuit against them in Federal court yesterday, apparently.

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