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Marvel Sued For Fraud Over ‘Iron Man’ Merchandise Deal

By DOMINIC PATTEN | Thursday May 3, 2012 @ 8:27pm PDTTags: Big Deals Film, Disney, Iron Man 2, Marvel Entertainment

One day before The Avengers opens big in North America, Marvel has been hit with a merchandise lawsuit. The lawsuit is over the “Iron Man’s Lair Play Box” – or rather, the lack of it. Box-A-Mania are claiming that Marvel Entertainment knowingly misrepresented licensing rights that it held and its ability to execute the deal when it made an agreement with the toy company. Box-O-Mania, in a 23-page civil suit plus exhibits, goes after Marvel on nine counts, ranging from fraud, concealment, misrepresentation and negligence. (Read the suit here.)

The defendants are Marvel Entertainment LLC, Marvel Characters Inc, Marvel International Character Holdings, LLC and Marvel Characters B.V., Inc, which is a Netherlands corporation. Of course, this could all be over as soon as it began if the court doesn’t agree with Box-A-Mania and their lawyers that a “pre-dispute agreement that any lawsuit between the parties will be adjudicated in a court trial, and not by jury trial is unenforceable.” The California-based plaintiff’s assertion is based on the Netherlands address of Marvel Characters B.V., Inc and the filing of this lawsuit outside New York state, where the agreement in question would be enforceable.

On September 14, 2010, according the suit filed in LA in Superior Court today, Box-O-Mania and Marvel signed a deal for the toy company to make an Iron Man’s Lair Play Box. Box-O-Mania, which has been around since 2009, specializes in life-sized playhouses that children can decorate. The plan, claims Box-O-Mania, was to “manufacture and market” the Iron Man’s Lair Play Box in time for the DVD release of Iron Man II on November 16, 2010. Utilizing Marvel’s deep merchandising relationships with retailers such as Wal-Mart, Box-O-Mania, who say they donate a portion of their profits to a homeless child’s charity, anticipated a big sales and big success with the Iron Man’s Lair Box. That, as today’s dense lawsuit makes abundantly clear, never happened.  The Lair Box itself never happened, says the toy company, because Marvel Entities “failed to secure the ownership and/or right to license the Iron Man artwork to be created fro the Iron Man’s Lair Play Box” and that “ME failed to provide timely responses to plaintiff’s submissions” in time to coincide with the Iron Man II DVD release.

The Walt Disney Company formally completed its more than $4 billion acquisition of Marvel Entertainment on December 31, 2009. Disney is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

“As a further result of the executor fraud,” the suit says, “Box-O-Mania has been damaged in lost business, business opportunities, and reputation and otherwise in an amount to be proved.” The company is seeking $33,000 that it says it paid Marvel in licensing rights under the September 2010 agreement. Where it could get pricey is that Box-O-Mania is also seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees and “such other and further relief as the court deems just and proper.”

Box-O-Mania, who are represented by attorney Mark B. Scott, have requested a 10-day jury trial.

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Iger: Disney Monitoring Recession Indicators But Sees No Consumer Impact Yet

By DAVID LIEBERMAN, Executive Editor | Tuesday August 9, 2011 @ 1:23pm PDTTags: ABC Family, Bob Iger, Cars 2, Disney, Disney Earnings, ESPN, Iron Man 2, Thor, Toy Story 3

UPDATE, 3:10 PM: CEO Bob Iger told analysts that Disney hasn’t seen much change in consumer spending plans as a result of the stock market gyrations and recession talk over the last few days. He … Read More »

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Warner Bros Wins 2010 Film Market Share; Year’s Box Office Grosses Not A Record; Overall Movie Attendance Down Sharply; Should Studios Slash Number Of 3D Pics?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Friday December 31, 2010 @ 3:34am PSTTags: 2010 Box Office Gross, Alice in Wonderland, Inception, Iron Man 2, Movies, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Toy Story 3, Warner Bros, Warner Bros Market Share

The movie moguls hate it whenever their studios are judged by market share. Which is why it’s so much fun to spotlight at the end of the year. Final figures aren’t in yet, but the order isn’t going to change: Warner … Read More »

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Every Studio & Network Boosted Earnings; So Why Isn’t Hollywood Working More?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday August 10, 2010 @ 7:01pm PDTTags: Alice in Wonderland 3D, Big Media, Big Media Earnings, Chase Carey, DreamWorks Animation SKG, Iron Man 2, Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Immelt, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Les Moonves, Moguls, News Corp Finance, Philippe Dauman, Rupert Murdoch, The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner Finance, Toy Story 3, Viacom

UPDATE: The Walt Disney Co was the last major studio and network to report quarterly earnings, and its fiscal 3rd quarter profit rose 40% on the strong box office grosses from Pixar’s Toy Story 3, Marvel’s Iron Man 2, and Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland 3D. As promised, here is an earnings roundup showing that Big Media is alive and well and even flourishing not just this quarter but in many cases for next quarter or even the entire year. Yet the trickle down effect has been slow or nonexistent for Hollywood. After rounds of layoffs during the economic crisis, the moguls are still slow to put people back to work. And the movie and TV community still is underemployed. But what everyone can count on is that Big Media’s good news for the benefit of Wall Street will turn into bad news to the detriment of talent, behind-the-camera, post-production, and below-the-line unions when it’s time to negotiate:

August 5th: Viacom Inc Reports Sharply Higher Earnings For Q2
Credit the rebounding economy and recovering advertising market. Net earnings rose to $420 million, or 69 cents a share, up 52% from $277 million, or 46 cents a share, a year ago. Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone gushed, ”With six months under our belt in this calendar year, day after day our confidence continues to grow as the emerging economy recovery builds. Now of course we’re not all the way back, but the light is brighter than it’s been for some time… Consumers are returning to the marketplace, marketers are beginning to spend again to grow revenues and capture share and Viacom is now and will continue to benefit.” Revenue at Viacom’s media networks group rose 6% to $2.1 billion.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said ad revenue growth has been improving quarter by quarter. “Once we get into October and into the December quarter, we will benefit from this upfront where we have greater volume than last year at higher pricing. Dauman singled out Jersey Shore as a show where ”we have advertisers scrambling to get on it. We have advertisers who want to be wall to wall in particular episode. We’re turning them away.” Viacom’s movie business was down 10% to 41.25 billion, led by a 43% drop in home entertainment revenue. Also, Paramount Pictures has primarily been distributing others’ films like Iron Man 2 and Shrek Forever After in 2010 and self-financing its own pics. It is deliberately pursuing a strategy of a smaller slate of films in 2010-2011. Still, the film unit booked income of $69 million, reversing an $8 million loss in the same quarter a year ago. Viacom continued to post equity losses from its EPIX joint venture but said it should approach break-even by the end of the year.

August 4th: News Corp Posts Improved 4th Quarterly Results
News Corp posted a profit of $875 million, or 33 cents a share, for its fiscal 4Q ended June 30th easily beating analysts expectations. That compared with a loss of $203 million, or 8 cents a share, a year ago, when News Corp took an impairment charge. Revenue grew 6% to $8.11 billion, as companies spent more to advertise on the company’s television stations, TV channels and newspapers. That beat the average forecast of analysts of $8.05 billion. COO Chase Carey explained that brisk sales of advertising at Fox Broadcasting and the company’s cable television networks made the difference, while ad rates at the Fox network are up by a double-digit percentage from this spring. Ad rates are even better at the cable channels, which already represent more than 50% of the company’s profits. Local television station advertising revenues improved 29% in the quarter and 8% for the year compared to the same periods a year ago, reflecting strength in the automobile and telecom sectors. Read More »

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Nolan’s ‘Inception’ Passes $100M In 7 Days

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Friday July 23, 2010 @ 7:49am PDTTags: Alice in Wonderland, Box Office, Chris Nolan Inception, Inception, Inception Box Office, Iron Man 2, Legendary Pictures, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Warner Bros

The Warner Bros/Legendary Pictures’ Inception is now only the 5th film this year to gross over $100M in its first week of release joining Toy Story 3, Alice In Wonderland, Iron Man 2, and the Twilight Saga: Eclipse. But it’s the only 2D original film to do so. Warner Bros … Read More »

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Paramount First To Cross $1 Billion At 2010 Domestic Box Office

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday June 29, 2010 @ 2:31pm PDTTags: Brad Grey Paramount, How to Train Your Dragon, Iron Man 2, Shrek Forever After, Shutter Island

paramountlogoHOLLYWOOD, CA (June 29, 2010) – Paramount Pictures announced today the studio has crossed the $1 billion mark at the domestic box office, making it the first studio to accomplish the milestone this year. This marks the fourth year in

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