Marvel chooses to admit defeat! “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was subject to copyright controversy, and the final film completely rewrote a character.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” will bring an unprecedented grand narrative.
According to the official introduction, the Marvel universe is in the chaos of the multiverse. From the giant tentacle eyeball monster to the evil self, everyone is full of danger.
It’s worth noting that “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” actually received a lot of legal complaints and copyright warnings early in the filming.
Due to a complicated copyright dispute for a role, Marvel chose to abandon the original plan after weighing it repeatedly and rewrite the role.
And this role is the big-eyed monster “Gargantos” in the movie.
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In the original design, the villain of “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” was Shuma-Gorath, the ancient evil god of the earth.
Marvel will pave the way for it in “What If”, and then it will shine in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”.
However, when the shooting started, Marvel discovered that this character turned out to be a time bomb, which could detonate at any time.
This all starts from the early history of Marvel. The copyrights of many Marvel characters are not owned by Marvel, as everyone thinks.
In addition to the copyrights sold by Marvel to repay debts, there are many copyrights that Marvel leased to use.
These copyrights can be used by Marvel, but they also belong to other parties, and Shuma-Gorath is one of them.
“Shuma-Gorath” is named after Robert Ervin Howard’s short story in 1967, and the protagonist of the story is Conan the Barbarian.
Later, Marvel borrowed this role and made his first appearance as the villain of Doctor Strange in 1973, six years later.
The original author Howard later continued to write many “Conan the Barbarian” stories.
Marvel bought the manga adaptation rights for the series in 2018, but its live-action adaptation rights were bought by Netflix.
Therefore, if you trace the source, “Shuma-Gorath” should belong to the “Conan the Barbarian” series, which is owned by Netflix.
If you want to adapt it into a movie, you also need Netflix authorization. Marvel’s use of Shuma-Gorath in “Doctor Strange 2” is completely infringing.
And to make things more complicated, Universal Pictures released a movie called “Conan the Barbarian” in 1997.
Therefore, Universal Pictures also owns some of the film and television adaptation rights of the series.
From the perspective of legality, as long as Marvel dares to use Shuma-Gorath in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, it will lead to lawsuits and prosecutions from all parties.
This is bound to bring a steady stream of trouble in the later stage.
Therefore, Marvel finally chose Plan B. Even if the character Gargantos, which has a similar appearance to Shuma-Gorath, is used, Shuma-Gorath’s character core is used to bring the story into the story.
Although the wrong name and appearance will inevitably disappoint fans, it can be made according to the original plan without any follow-up troubles. It is also the best choice.
And interestingly, the copyright of Gargantos previously belonged to Fox.
After Disney acquired Fox, Marvel was able to use the role, and Gargantos is also a derivative of Namor. The introduction of this role by MCU can also pave the way for Namor.
There are rumors that Namor will play an important role in “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” this fall.
It is speculated that the previous large-scale remake was to rewrite the role of the big-eyed monster, so that all the film lines related to it were replaced with Gargantos.
From this point of view, copyright is indeed the most complicated thing at the moment.
“Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” will be released on May 6, 2022.
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