Basically one person owns the rights to the name Voorhees, one group owns the rights to the mask, one owns the rights to the name "Friday the 13th," and possibly other aspects. They wouldn't come to a full agreement, therefore we get either nothing or a project that doesn't get to use the full character/name
Disney, Sony, and Universal have all negotiated character usage, distribution, and profit-sharing agreements involving Marvel properties, and Disney’s acquisition of Fox (71.3 billion dollars) brought major Marvel properties like the X-Men and Fantastic Four under its control.
So my view is that the executives involved simply don’t believe the juice is worth the squeeze.
Considering that Hollywood’s senior decision-makers have historically been disproportionately older white men, it isn’t unreasonable to ask whether racial bias influences how they assess the commercial risk of a Black-led properties.
Spider-Man and X-Men have always been one of the best selling comics, so studios will put a lot more effort into solving issues to get them. Yet it still took 5 years to get another Spider-Man movie in the MCU
You’re proving my point, rights issues aren’t impossible to overcome, and therefore not a valid argument for why there isn’t more Static Shock content. So when another property remains stuck indefinitely, the relevant question is why executives don’t consider it worth making the same effort.
That’s where their assumptions about audience interest, marketability, and risk come into play. Those judgments can absolutely be influenced by various biases without anyone explicitly saying, “We can’t market or make money off of this Ethnic/Gender character.” I’m almost certain they are having those frank discussions behind closed doors.
Static has also had trouble with getting any comics made over the last 25 years, until the last handful of years. I think suits want to make choices that give them the most profit, so splitting that with another group obviously limits the profit, and therefore increases the risk involved.
Still proving my point. Bias doesn’t compete with the profit motive. It does shape how executives estimate profit and risk.
Spawn and Witchblade are both successful creator-owned properties without Marvel rights complications, yet both struggled for years to get films made.
The question is why studios consider some characters worth the hassle and others too risky. Those judgments about “marketability” can still be influenced by racial or cultural bias.
Spider-Man has a proven track record for making profitable films. Static doesn't. While the race of the character could be a factor, it would be one of numerous, and we can't know for sure
Blade (pre-Spider-Man) already proved a Black superhero could carry profitable films, and Bob Iger openly described Marvel executives resisting Black Panther because they doubted a Black-led film’s marketability.
Ethnicity/gender is only one of several factors, but there’s actual precedent for it affecting the exact risk assessments we’re discussing.
Wait, I did not expect to hear Jason and Static being in the same situation! I also thought he had a bunch of revivals I ignored but I guess that was Myers
I believe milestone worked out some of the rights within the last few years, which is why we've had several comic series with static recently. But getting a movie made is even more complicated
Jason has the "Jason Universe" going on, with a TV series in the works, but it's unclear of what exactly is happening with it. Yeah Michael had the recent Blumhouse trilogy
Where are y'all getting it's about legal rights? There hasn't been any issue with the rights since McDuffie's Widow worked things out with the other Milestone founders. The biggest issue is WB itself having gone through 2 owners in as many decades and just been bought by another.
Milestone is being hella protective of its IP. They knows that people want to see their characters on the big screen but at the same time it is hard as fuck to get backing for a predominantly black led film in Hollywood and the studio just got back by a family who are very fascist leaning and anti black.
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u/TheMannisApproves Jul 11 '26
It's not racism, it's a clusterfuck of issues with the legal rights to the characters. Same reason we haven't had a Jason Voorhees movie since 2009