Sony Pictures almost bought all the Marvel character rights in the 1990s for $25 million, but they only wanted the rights to Spider-Man.

[Xerxes]

 

"Nobody gives a sh*t about any of the other Marvel characters. Go back and do a deal for only Spider-Man."

 

Sony Almost Bought All Marvel Character Rights in the 1990s (screenrant.com)

[Guest]

This is one of those things that seem like a huge mistake but who knows. If Sony would have taken things over, superhero movies may not have turned out like they did. 

[Xerxes]

Very truth.

 

Investment point of view:

 

But I like to think like interest-rate cycle there is such thing as superhero-cycle. As that cycle eventually went from drought in the 90s and turned into a raging bull, someone would have made some dough on that portfolio of call options.

 

Consumer point of view:

 

But agreed that from a consumer point of view, it was better to have a major media company that was going to put its whole weight behind it and believed in it. If SONY bought everything, it is likely that they would have never made a large bet as Walt Disney made. It took guts to do what Walt Disney did. Who would have thought there could be so much value behind all of these secondary characters that could be mined and mined and mined. That value behind the secondary characters came into the money only because of major investment they had done in the first-tier characters.

 

[Gregmal]

Kinda like how Disney wanted to build in the Panhandle and Ed Ball turned them down because he didn’t want to deal with carnival people. So Disney went to Orlando and the rest is history. 

[Parsad]

I remember when LotsofCoke bought tons of Marvel for like $2 and $4 for his accounts and his children's accounts.  No one at the time could understand what he saw and how anyone would monetize all of the Marvel assets properly.  Lo and behold, those assets make up the bulk of theatre revenues every year for the last decade. 

 

He was also the one who told me to come to Omaha back in 2000.  If I had not gone there, hung out with LotsofCoke and met Buffett, COBF would not be around today!  Thanks John...where ever you are and what ever you are doing these days!  Cheers!