New Brevoort Formspring

Those film rights weren’t sold in desperation–that’s a latter day interpretation by people that don’t know the facts or understand when those rights were granted. And sure, you could have not sold those rights, but if you wanted to get movies made featuring the Marvel characters–and the Marvel of that era wanted that desperately–then you optioned the characters. None of those options was in perpetuity, though–they only continue to roll on while the optioning studios continue to make films about those characters. And most all of the characters that Marvel still has were similarly optioned, it’s just that no films ever materialized in those cases.