Marvel killing the Fantastic Four?

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Marvel superheroes are a powerful force in the movie universe, but it's going to take a huge plot twist to get them all fighting on the same side.

When Disney (DIS) bought Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion back in 2009, it secured the rights to Marvel's entire comic-book universe including Captain America, Spider-Man, The X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, The Fantastic Four and The Hulk. It just didn't get the right to put all of them on screen, and it's still a little bitter about it half a decade later.

Sony (SNE) still holds the film rights to Spider-Man and all the villains, sidekicks and other characters created specifically for his books. The folks at 21st Century Fox (FOXA) hold similar rights to both the X-Men and Fantastic Four. Neither Disney nor Marvel are happy about that situation and, recently, issued an edict to Marvel's writers not to develop anything new for the Marvel properties owned by Fox.

X-Men writer Chris Claremont recently appeared on the Nerdist podcast and told Len Wein, Marc Bernardin and Heath Corson that he's been “forbidden to create new characters… all because all new characters become the film property of Fox.” And -- “because why promote Fox material?” -- the Marvel staff has been told to put exactly zero effort into producing new X-Men merchandise.

Keep in mind that the X-Men franchise has brought in $1.3 billion in the United States and more than $3 billion worldwide. Fox has released seven X-Men films since 2000 and the latest, X-Men: Days Of Future Past, just brought in $746 million around the globe this summer. In the U.S., the X-Men franchise ranks No. 11 just behind the Transformers in overall box-office receipts, not including merchandising and home video.

The Fantastic Four, meanwhile, might just get killed off for making money for the wrong company. Marvel Chief Executive Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter -- portrayed by The Hollywood Reporter early this summer as the media equivalent of a miserly millionaire who dresses in rags and subsists on stale packets of oatmeal -- apparently was so enraged about Fox rebooting the Fantastic Four film franchise that he's killed all licensing and merchandising for the title. As Bleeding Cool reported, workers in Marvel's offices “pulled down lest Perlmutter see one and have his ire raised.”

Also, it looks as if the Fantastic Four themselves are getting the ax, as Bleeding Cool adds that the upcoming Fantastic Four: The End Is Fourever storyline could be the group's last once it wraps up in early 2015. With the Fantastic Four franchise making $620 million worldwide from two films released since 2005 and with the newest installment releasing in August, cutting off the franchise's ability to generate cash from anything other than the films themselves is no small deal.

As the more than $1 billion produced worldwide by 2012's The Avengers makes clear, however, Marvel just loves getting as many of its high-priced heroes under one roof as possible. Combined, the Marvel Cinematic Universe films with rights owned exclusively by Marvel have made more than $7 billion worldwide at the box office from the release of Iron Man in 2008 through the box-office run of this year's Guardians Of The Galaxy. When all Marvel Comics properties are combined, however, they've produced nearly $7 billion in the U.S. alone, and more than $15 billion worldwide.

Marvel and Disney want all of that, which is why recent murmurs surrounding Marvel, Disney, Sony and Spider-Man might just produce a way forward. Sony is desperately attempting to exit the movie business and, according to The New York Times, might be talking to Marvel about getting Spider-Man back into the Marvel universe as the franchise loses steam.

Sony's original Spider-Man made more than $400 million in the U.S. alone when it released in 2002. Adjusted for inflation, that's more than $566 million. The latest installment, this year's Amazing Spider-Man 2, had a tough time cracking $200 million in the U.S. and made just $700 million worldwide compared to the first film's $890 million 12 years ago. Amazing Spider-Man 3 isn't scheduled for release until 2018, a Spider-Man supervillian movie The Sinister Six is coming in 2016 and Entertainment Weekly notes that a flop by either film could put Spider-Man back into Marvel's hands.

Comic books companies have made a habit of killing off beloved characters from Superman to Captain America to make them profitable again. Sacrificing its own creations to pry money out of Fox and Sony's hands? Marvel's true believers have read similar stories before.