You can’t make this shit up. It appears Gary Friedrich, the creator of Ghost Rider is taking Marvel, Hasbro and Take – Two to court for how they handled the Ghost Rider Character/Copyright Infringement. We get the story from Yahoo:
The creator of Ghost Rider (Gary Friedrich) has sued Marvel Enterprises, Sony Pictures Entertainment and several entities over what he claims is an unauthorized “joint venture and conspiracy to exploit, profit from and utilize” his copyrights to the comic book character.
Friedrich alleges copyright infringement, and accuses Marvel of waste for failing “to properly utilize and capitalize” on the Ghost Rider character. Marvel’s attempts to do so, Friedrich claims, have only damaged the value of his work by failing to properly promote and protect the characters and by accepting inadequate royalties from co-defendants. Friedrich also claims that toymaker Hasbro and videogame firm Take-Two have improperly created merchandise based on the characters.
This could of been the greatest episode of Night Court ever! I would pay to be at the hearing. “Your honor, Ghost Rider fuckin’ rules and the movie, toys and video game were total bullshit!” I think this will be a hard pitch to a judge, lets just hope he is a Ghost Rider fan. I cannot wait to see how this pans out.
All joking aside, it would be tough to have a character that you created and love end up in someone else’s hands and turned to shit in front of you. I would probably cry myself to sleep. But if you don’t want someone to fuck it up – do it yourself. I feel for Gary. It is a tough time for him and as he sleeps on ghost rider sheets tonight I want him to know that we are here for him regardless of the verdict. It could be worse Gary – did you see what they did to the Hulk?
Yeah, they found the disobedient lil bastard. Give up the search.
@Kristina: Nemo was found?? That’s wonderful! This also means that I can stop looking now.
I have no comment on the story except that I loved the Ghost Rider film and hated, loathed and despised The Hulk film.
That is all.
The point he is making in this law suit is that in 2001 the GR rights reverted back to him from Marvel. Marvel and everyone else involved in the film had no right to make a movie based on the GR character.
The problem I have is that there is no way this dude didn’t know about the GR film in early pre-production. He chose to sit back, wait until there was over 200 million in profits,lets Marvel front all the cash and take all the risks involved, then he swoops in with this law suit, easy money eh?
Nord
I still havn’t seen Ghost Rider, just been waiting for the DVD. But I can understand where Gary Friedrich is coming from and in some ways, I don’t blame him.
I’ve been developing a comic book myself for quite some time and I would be extremely pist off if some turned it into a bad movie, toy line, video game, cartoon series, or whatever. But I wont let it happen either.
Todd Mcfarlane (creator of Spawn) did it right and owns all the rights to Spawn and it’s univerise and has complete contol over it, aswell as everything else he now creates. Thats why you don’t see stupid Spawn tooth brushes, lunch boxes or kids wearing Spawn sneakers. Frank Miller is also this way with Sin City. Thats exacly the way I intend to treat my “baby” aswell. Complete creative control, so I’ll never have to go threw this crap myself.
But so many comic artists sign over they’re characters without even thinking about it, other then the money they’ll get for it. If Gary really carred about his character and the world he created, then he should of protected it better or atleast had some involvement with the movie to keep an eye on it. Not to mention the video game and toy line.
I wonder what Nicolas Cage thinks of this. He says Ghost Rider was his fav comic growing up and as far as I know he really thought the movie he was in did the comic justice, aswell as the way he actually portraid the character.
What he’s saying is that Marvel didn’t get enough royalties for the Ghost Rider property. They probably gave everyone GR rights for cheap to sweeten their Spider-Man deal, etc.
Plus it doesn’t help that a handful of corporations are allowed to own everything anyway. The artist is constantly getting screwed. Dick Wolf sued NBC for selling syndication rights to A&E, which NBC owns, rather than selling them to the highest bidder. I think this GhostRider hoo-ha is something like that.
“did you see what they did to the Hulk”
HAHAHAHAH Bloody brilliant.
I wish I could sue them too…the film was fucking terrible.
……
there was a similar case recently where the video game company who had the rights to the star trek licence sued paramount for making the new shows and movies suck therefore spoiling their sales…….
@Spence
I know. Hindsight’s a mofo, ain’t it?
Hey Jaysmack,
You said:
“That being the case they oughta know by now when they’re making a bomb.”
Are ou talking about Ghostrider? The movie made over $200 million. That’ not a bomb by anyone’s books.
“But if you don’t want someone to fuck it up – do it yourself.”
Sure, I’ll bet Friedrich has a few dozen million burning a hole in his pocket. Why didn’t Stan Lee make the hulk movie too for that matter?
Movie making, especially FX driven vehicles, are prohibitively expensive. Studios are the only game in town and they’ve been doing it forever. That being the case they oughta know by now when they’re making a bomb. Or at the least they should know when it’s not a hit.
“But if you don’t want someone to fuck it up – do it yourself.”
Sure, I’ll bet Friedrich has a few dozen million burning a hole in his pocket. Why didn’t Stan Lee make the hulk movie too for that matter?
Movie making, especially FX driven vehicles, are prohibitively expensive. Studios are the only game in town and they’ve been doing it forever. That being the case they oughta know by now when they’re making a bomb. Or at the least they should know why it’s not a hit.
dude Hulk sucks all kinds of donkey ass….sorry
@ Kristina
you shouldv’e just watched Finding Nemo again….
i can just see angry people wanted to do this to the transformers because the designs were changed. very dumb if you aks me
its too bad what they did to the Ghost Rider video game. his character would make an awesome game if they put any effort into it. instead they treated it like just another easy cash-in.
Ironically enough, the “so-called” bad movie is probably what will rescue the Ghost Rider franchise and introduce it to another new generation. Ghost Rider comics had stopped production for a long time before the movie was released. So there is good news and bad news. I just hope Ghost Rider 2 will be better than Ghost Rider 1.
The guy should sue the makers of this movie. For making it SUCK. Right on, buddy!
And I love you John, but Hulk…….put it this way. I saw Finding Nemo at 7pm in the theater, and when we(my sister and dad) got out of it, we decided to stay and watch the 1030pm screening of Hulk. We should have gone home after Nemo had been found:(
I’m with you John, The Hulk is a good flick.
Hey!!! Fuck you Nagy!! I liked The Hulk (sulks in corner)