Chapter 800: A Sudden Copyright Lawsuit

According to Duke's plan, The Avengers would begin filming in September or October. The shoot was tentatively scheduled for two and a half months. After Marvel Pictures disbursed the initial $60 million in funding, the crew's prep work had begun in an orderly fashion.

The scope of the film was massive, but the actual filming process would be quite different. Nearly ninety percent of the movie would be shot on sets built inside the soundstages at Warner Studios. This meant Duke would be using green screens extensively.

Aside from a handful of scenes requiring location shoots, Duke would essentially complete the film's production in Los Angeles.

However, he would eventually split the crew into two teams. Anna Printz would lead a second unit to locations including Germany, New York, and Cleveland to shoot enough background plates for the post-production composite shots.

To date, the Avengers had existed for half a century, and the Marvel Comics Company that grew alongside it boasted over seventy years of history.

This half-century had given comic book writers ample time to refine and perfect the Marvel Universe's massive lore. It had also provided generation after generation of creators the opportunity to dig deeper into its characters. The independent backgrounds and stories of individual comics could no longer satisfy audience demand. In an era where everything crossed over, the emergence of the Avengers was inevitable.

Among them were grassroots heroes, artificial intelligences born of cutting-edge technology, highly dangerous extraterrestrial lifeforms, and divine lords with innate supernatural power.

Magic, technology, and superpowers had reached a perfect balance through repeated friction and collaboration. The harmonious coexistence of humans, gods, and aliens grew increasingly plausible. The Hollywood production pipeline and modern special effects technology also perfectly suited the needs of adapting this series into a film franchise.

Thanks to the buildup from the previous movies, the franchise had already generated massive buzz and gathered a dedicated fanbase. The sensory thrill of seeing these superheroes assemble would inevitably increase exponentially.

In Duke's eyes, this film could actually fulfill the dreams of audiences across many different age groups—seeing their beloved heroes crowded into a single frame to team up and fight monsters.

But getting these superheroes to successfully team up and fight monsters was no easy feat. Setting aside the challenges Duke faced during pre-production, outside interference was always bound to crop up.

In Hollywood, whenever a film became a massive hit, all sorts of people would come out of the woodwork wanting a piece of the pie. Take James Cameron's Avatar, for example—the number of times people stepped forward to accuse it of plagiarism almost rivaled the number of times its box office was mentioned.

Some were driven by profit. Others were driven by competitors. This was a complex, chaotic, and fiercely competitive industry; seeing any tactic from the corporate world put to use here wouldn't be surprising in the least.

Duke ran into some trouble while preparing for The Avengers.

In mid-May, the descendants of the famous American comic book artist Jack Kirby, along with their lawyers, held a press conference. They announced they would be filing a lawsuit in a Los Angeles court against Marvel Comics and Marvel Pictures, demanding the termination of the copyrights to the comic book characters created by Jack Kirby. They also demanded a halt to the prep and filming of The Avengers, along with a share of the profits from the previous films.

This news was quickly reported by the media and instantly became the focus of public attention. Many media outlets even began publishing reports that The Avengers would be delayed indefinitely.

Jack Kirby was one of Marvel's founding figures and an important assistant to Stan Lee. He had participated in the creation of superhero characters like the Fantastic Four, Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor, and was one of the co-creators of the Avengers.

However, unlike Stan Lee, who was still alive, Kirby had passed away back in 1994.

Without a doubt, Stan Lee was publicly recognized as Marvel's father of superheroes, and according to his agreement with Marvel, he enjoyed a five percent share of all profits generated by the superheroes he had a hand in creating.

But in reality, the long-deceased Jack Kirby had a much greater impact on Marvel than Stan Lee.

Jack Kirby's descendants taking the Marvel Company to court to reclaim the copyrights for a series of comic works he created between 1958 and 1963 would undoubtedly bring a lot of trouble to Marvel's grand plans.

Of course, Duke wasn't going to stop pre-production and filming. After the other party held their press conference, he convened a meeting of his own.

Whether or not Jack Kirby's descendants had been put up to it by someone, their chances of winning this lawsuit were slim. That was because they weren't just facing Marvel Comics.

If the forty-five copyright termination demands put forward by Jack Kirby's descendants were ultimately realized, the copyrights and revenues for numerous characters—including the Fantastic Four, X-Men, Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and Spider-Man—would have to be redistributed.

This involved not just Marvel and Warner Brothers, but also multiple other companies like Sony Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, and Paramount.

Unsurprisingly, at Duke's mere suggestion, these companies stood together and formed a massive legal team. Not only did they respond to the lawsuit, but they also filed a countersuit against Jack Kirby's descendants.

The Marvel Company put forward their claim, stating that Jack Kirby's works from those years were all work-for-hire creations made for the company, and therefore all copyrights belonged entirely to the Marvel Company.

According to American copyright law, if Marvel assigned a writer or artist a task to create a comic story introducing a new character, or to draw comics based on character descriptions, and paid them upon completion of the task, then the publishing company owned the copyright, not the writer or artist.

Marvel Pictures firmly declared in a press release, "All comics Jack Kirby contributed to Marvel fall into this category."

This was bound to turn into an incredibly drawn-out legal battle. In the face of such a powerful alliance of interests, everyone actually knew that Jack Kirby's descendants had almost zero chance of winning.

"They're just doing this to cause trouble for us."

Inside an office at Warner Studios, Tina Fey said to Scarlett Johansson, who had just walked in, "It increases the pressure on us. After all, if the lawsuit is lost, the entire project has to stop. That kind of psychological weight will affect the actors and the rest of the crew."

Scarlett turned to look at Duke.

"Darling, will you be affected?" she asked.

Duke, who was currently taking a break, set down his coffee cup and shook his head.

"If I let things like this affect me, I never would have made it this far," he said.

Along his journey, how much fierce competition had he faced? How many overt and covert tactics had his rivals employed against him?

There was no way Hollywood would just stand by and watch a single power rise completely unopposed.

Beyond himself, Duke was also fully confident in his entire team. Just like him, they had weathered countless storms; they weren't the sort of idiots who ran to Hollywood thinking it was some holy land.

"Scar, when you rehearse with the other actors..."

Compared to the members of his own team, Duke was still a little worried about the cast.

"...you can also talk to them about this," he continued. "The production won't shut down, no matter what."

Those actors were neither newcomers nor fools. With just a little hint, they would naturally see that Jack Kirby's descendants had absolutely no chance of winning.

Setting aside the fact that Marvel had indeed authorized Jack Kirby's creations back in the day, even if they hadn't, winning a lawsuit against such a powerful alliance of interests was an unbelievable tall tale.

The laws in this country were indeed robust, but only a fool would believe that America's legal system was fair and just.

Scarlett nodded.

"Yeah... I know what to do," she said.

Tina Fey had been flipping through some documents and suddenly spoke up.

"Duke, there's something you need to be aware of. Fast and Furious 5, David Ellison's collaboration with Universal Pictures, is scheduled to premiere the weekend after ours."

Scarlett stood up and walked over to Tina Fey, looking at the documents alongside her.

"What is he trying to do now?" she asked. "Does he naively think that Fast and Furious 5 can beat The Avengers?"

Duke had never been an arrogant man.

"We can't be careless," he said. "The Fast & Furious franchise has already amassed a huge fanbase. As long as there are no issues with the film itself or its marketing, it will absolutely be a formidable rival."

"Whoa..."

As if spotting something very strange, Scarlett cried out.

"There's actually an old acquaintance of yours in this cast," she noted.

Before Duke could react, she continued.

"They brought Mel Gibson back from Australia to play the main villain in the movie."

Duke lightly tapped his coffee cup.

"So he actually came back," he murmured. "Tina, have someone keep an eye on Mel Gibson and this production."

Tina Fey nodded.

Scarlett Johansson, however, thought of something else.

"Could this lawsuit we're facing have something to do with David Ellison and his production?" she asked.

Duke only gave an ambiguous answer.

"It's possible."

Just as he had said in the past, who actually did it wasn't important; what mattered was who benefited the most from it. As long as you could spot the beneficiary, you could spot where your enemies were.

Seeing Tina Fey start making calls, Scarlett stepped away and came over to Duke's side. Resting her hands on the back of his chair, she spoke.

"Shouldn't we do something? We can't just passively take a beating, can we?"

Duke tapped her hand in warning.

"Scar, you're worrying about too many things," he said. "The thing you should be focusing on right now is how to nail your character."

Scarlett walked toward the seat opposite Duke.

"Alright, alright, I know," she muttered as she walked. "Black Widow always follows orders and operates in the gray area. Even though she fights for justice, she has a dark background. But she still firmly fights for justice because, on the one hand, she has to, and on the other hand, she has a strong sense of responsibility. She always speaks with her fists; that's her way of telling right from wrong."