A Superhero Turf War

If you're a fan of superhero media, chances are you've run across the issue of characters from the same universe having their various movie and print rights owned by different companies. This is particularly true of Marvel characters, where rights to make movies for some of their biggest headliners were sold to companies like Twentieth Century FOX and Sony in the days before Marvel got into the business of making movies itself.

Now that superhero properties have turned into a hot commodity, those rights are more valuable than ever, and have spurred a lot of the decisionmaking about what films are getting made and how. Sony currently owns the rights to Spider-man, but those rights revert back to Marvel if a new Spidey film isn't made every few years. That's why we got the rebooted "Amazing Spider-man" so quick, and a second film is already being fast-tracked. Even if the movie franchise isn't as successful as it once was, it's worth it to Sony to hold on to those Spider-man rights. Over at FOX, the X-men and Fantastic Four franchises are getting new movies, but the studio let the Daredevil rights revert back to Marvel a few months ago, because they weren't ready to commit to a new reboot.

There are a couple of places where these rights might overlap. The exact language of who owns what isn't public, but fans have long pointed out that there are two significant characters associated with both the X-men, controlled by FOX, and the Avengers, controlled by Marvel. These are the Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, a brother and sister pair with mutant powers who were also occasionally Avengers in the comics. He can run really, really fast. She's kind of witchy and causes chaos wherever she goes. And now both the "X-men" and "Avengers" movie series are laying claim to them. Joss Whedon has confirmed that Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are going to be in " Avengers 2," and Bryan Singer not only announced that both characters will appear in next year's "X-men: Days of Future Past," but he's cast "American Horror Story" heartthrob Evan Peters as Quicksilver.

Now the details of how this is going to work are only a matter of speculation, and "Avengers 2" is still firmly in the pre-production phase. Some hopeful Marvel Universe fans are wondering if this could be a chance for an official cross-over between the two universes. If these two characters can be shared, maybe that will open the door to more collaborations in the future. Big studios certainly can play nice on occasion – "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" wouldn't exist otherwise. The cynics, including yours truly, are worried that the two movie studios aren't interested in playing nice, and may be on the verge of embarking on an epic legal battle to decide whether "X-men" or "Avengers" has dibs on Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. The worst case scenario is that we end up with disrupted productions, compromised quality, and possibly delays in these films reaching theaters.

Personally, I don't like these two characters much from what I've seen of them in other media. The "X-men" always seemed to turn into more of a soap opera whenever they were around, so I find it ironic that they seem to have a similar ability to stir up drama in the real world. Still, they do have a lot of potential as characters. The reason they're in this unique position in the Marvel Universe is because they've traditionally gone back and forth between hero and villain roles. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, also known as Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, started out as villains in the "X-men" series and were eventually redeemed. However, their father is the villain Magneto, and because of his influence they never manage to stay on the side of angels entirely.

If it were up to me, I'd rather see them in "The Avengers 2." "X-men: Days of Future Past" is already going to be a very crowded movie, juggling multiple versions of many familiar characters and introducing a gaggle of new ones into the mix. I don't see how Singer is going to be able to fit in Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch for more than cameos, and I suspect that is exactly what we're going to get. In "Avengers 2," however, Joss Whedon seems to want the pair to be front and center, and I think he's in a better position to do something interesting with them.

Keep in mind that however this turns out, both movies are going to be massive, and make oodles and oodles of money. This is a fight that's mainly of interest to the comic book nerds and the studios. Nobody else knows who these characters are, and if it all goes south, and things get so contentious that they get dropped from both movies (it could happen!) then I doubt most people will care too much that they're gone.
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