Both of this year’s Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) offerings from Marvel Comics showcased The Guardians of the Galaxy. Marvel’s FCBD editions were Rocket Raccoon and The Guardians of the Galaxy, both were designed to get fans all primed and excited for the upcoming Guardians movie, they were also two of the hotter selections at my shop at this year’s FCBD.
I initially thought this was a bit of overkill for Marvel, I mean we had Sipdey 2 opening the night before FCBD and we have Days of Future Past coming up later this summer.
That’s when it hit me. Why would Marvel publish FCBD comics to help Sony and Fox Studios?
Superhero movies are a big business, bigger than big actually and certainly bigger than the comic book business.
When you break it down you’d have to say that Disney Film Studios have been doing an amazing job of utilizing the characters they have left in the stable after accounting for all the properties they’ve farmed out to the likes of Fox and Sony.
This got me to thinking…
Does Marvel Comics now plan it’s big comic book events around future film or TV show possibilities?
We all know comics and graphic novels make perfect storyboards, look at Sin City.
So does the next big Civil War type event in the Marvel U exclude Spider-Man? Does that huge 10 issue maxi series with a million cross-overs not cross over into X-Men titles?
Seriously, the best Avengers title does not even sell 100,000 copies, a whole years worth of the best selling Avengers title might earn Marvel $1 million. How much did Avengers earn? How’s the new Cap movie doing?
Using existing storylines has been the way to go for comic book movies, Fox chose Days of Future Past for a reason, it’s a damn good story and one that has built in fans.
Comics are a great place to tryout cinematic storylines but what if it works? What if everybody loves that next Guardians storyline? Will we see the Silver Surfer? Will the FF be in it?
What if the new Daredevil storyline has him running into Spidey, how then to transfer that into the TV series?
How will this all play out?
Will Marvel start leaving out characters from their comics looking down the road to movies?
Will the movie studios work out deals to “borrow” characters for each others films?
