8 Films That Were Made Solely To Hold Onto Rights

This happened to the Fantastic Four not once, but twice! The first time was in the early nineties, when a producer who’d bought the rights realised his option was going to lapse. He’d tried for years to get a big budget movie going, but when he had no luck he recruited b-movie legend Roger Corman to make a cheap version, just so he could hold on to the rights.

Sadly the cast and crew weren’t told they were making something that would never get released and in the end, Marvel paid the producer to bury it. It’s never been given an official release, but bootleg copies are easy to find.

Rise Of The Silver Surfer had practically killed the series in 2007, and when Fox realised they had to make something or the rights would return to Marvel, they rushed a new movie into production. This 2015 reboot has already become infamous thanks to director Josh Trank’s odd behaviour, tensions between him and the cast, the reshoots and, of course, Trank's pre-release tweet.

This resulted in a profoundly weak blockbuster that just might have killed the series for good, though Fox will probably try again in four to five years.