What The MCU Would Look Like If Marvel Never Sold Their Movie Rights

Marvel went nearly bankrupt in the 90s and as a result were forced to sell the movie rights of their biggest characters, Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Fantastic Four and other. The Avengers were not seen as movie franchise worthy so studios were interested in buying them. So Marvel took the Avengers and made the biggest movie franchise of all time! But what would've happened if Marvel never sold their rights? Would the MCU have been as successful if it started with Spider-Man instead of Iron Man? Let's find out...
Support me on Patreon:
Check out a similar video where I restructed the DCEU to fit the MCU's structure:
And vice versa:

[blakeliles]

Would be cool to see a proper civil war with all these characters

[gravityfalls]

I think they would have had Wasp and Ant-man in the first avengers film, removing black Widow, hawkeye, and captain America, with the post credit scene of them finding cap's iced body

[reannagordon]

When I was younger I always thought Raimi Spider-Man was a part of the MCU and that the reason he wasn’t in the avengers was because he was busy doing something else or hasn’t been recruited yet.

[JoelMiller]

Now do a video where the Arrowverse had full rights of DC characters like Wonder Woman, Superman, and most especially Batman

[klaus]

Idea: Make a video about how the DCEU would have been if they didn't have the rights to Batman and Superman

[darthgojira]

Here’s the problem with this, if you try to make a universe with this many recognizable hero’s and villains you need to make more then 23 movies. This would have been better if you had made the universe have more movies in the Infinity Saga. I know you were following the structure rule in which you can only use 23 movies, but with a universe this massive it doesn’t work. You did a great job with the 23 movie structure. But I doubt they would only make 23 movies for the Infinity saga with this amount of superheroes to use. That’s why I think the MCU worked. They couldn’t rely on the big name characters doing the work for them. The movies had to be genuinely great. And to have the quality of the MCU movies, with the star power of all the characters in Marvel comics, you need more then 23 movies. I think you did a great job putting a universe together with only 23 movies, but I think they would need more then 23 movies.

[maylabrown]

It would have been pretty weird lol

The MCU would be comprised of the likes of Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Blade, Elektra, The Punisher, Howard the Duck, etc. Might as well just make Midnight Sons as the start of a Franchise, the main big bad being Mephisto

[mrmxyzptlk]

My structure of mcu
Phase 1 (2002-2009)
1. Spider Man (2002)
2. Wolverine : Origins (2002)
3. Spider Man 2 (2004)
4. Fantastic Four (2004)
5. Deadpool (2005)
6. The Wolverine (2005)
7. Spider Man 3 (2006)
8. Fantastic Four : Rise of Victor Doom (2007)
9. The Incredible Hulk (2007)
10. Iron Man (2008)
11. Captain America: The First Avenger (2008)
12. Fantastic Four : Kang's Rule (2009)
13. The Wolverine : Strikes Back (2009)
Phase 2 (2010-2016)
14. Spider Man 4 (2010)
15. Iron Man 2 (2010)
16. Kraven The Hunter (2011)
17. Thor (2011)
18. Avengers (2012)
19. X-Men : The First Class (2013)
20. Iron Man 3 (2013)
21. Deadpool 2 (2014)
22. Captain America Winter Soldier (2014)
23. Venom (2015)
24. Ant-Man (2015)
25. The Sinister Six VS Spider Man (2016)
26. Logan : X-23 (2016)
Phase 3 (2017-2022)
27. Thor : War of Realms (2017)
28. X-Men : United (2017)
29. Deadpool 3 (2017)
30. Ant Man And The Wasp (2018)
31. Thor Ragnarok (2018)
33. Black Panther (2018)
33. Thor Blood And Thunder (2019)
34. The Incredible Hulk 2 (2019)
35. Thunderbolts (2019)
36. Ant Man And The Wasp Quantamania (2021)
37. The Fantastic Four Into Negative Zone (2021)
38. Doctor Strange (2021)
39. Black Panther : Wakanda Forever (2021)
40. The Namor (2022)
41. The Illuminati (Show) (2022)
42. X-Men : Apocalypse (2022)
43. Daredevil (Show) (2022)
44. Avengers : Rage of Ultron (2022)
45. Inhumans (Show) (2022)
46. The Civil War (2022)
47. Falcon And The Winter Soldier (Show) (2022)
Phase 4 (2023-2025)
48. Hawkeye (Show) (2023)
49. Gaurdians of The Galaxy Vol 1 (2023)
50. Odinson (Show) (2023)
51. The Dark Phoenix (2023)
52. WandaVision (Show) (2023)
53. Miles Moralis (2023)
54. Spider Man Into The Spider Verse (Show) (2023)
55. The Fantastic Four : Rise of Galactus (2023)
56. Moon Knight (Show) (2024)
57. Thunderbolts 2 (2024)
58. Nova (Show) (2024)
59. Shang Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings ( 2024)
60. Luke Cage (Show) (2024)
61. Gaurdians Of The Galaxy Vol 2 (2024)
62. Iron Fist (Show) (2024)
63 Doctor Strange In Multiverse of Madness (2024)
64. The Defenders Season 2 (Show) (2024)
65. Ghost Rider (2025)
66. Planet Hulk (Show) (2025)
67. Captain America : New World Order (2025)
68. Inhumans Season 2 (2025)
69. Sentry (2025)
70. Captain Marvel (2025)
71. World War Hulk (2025)
72. New Avengers (Show) (2025)
73. Secret Invasion (2025)

[anderurteaga]

For a more classic take, I think it would be similar to how Marvel created its comic universe in the 1960s, starting with Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron-Man, Thor, the X-Men and Spider-Man, some of them with the ongoing mention of Hank Pym, and there you have the Captain America movie with references to the original Human Torch and Namor, so that he reappears in Fantastic Four 2, and the Captain is revived in modern day in the Avengers movie after a fight, and probably the villains would be the Masters of Evil, Kang or Loki. Phase 2 could be inspired by the late 1960s-1970s and have the Skrull-Kree War (Marvel’s first big event) with Secret Invasion inspirations and Galactus’ first appear-ance, some darker characters like Ghost Rider and Daredevil, and then the Secret Wars from the 80s or the Infinity Saga from the early 1990s, with grimmier and edgier stories, then 2000s’ Disassembled, Civil War, House of M, etc. To this day I still want an animated adaptation of Marvels (Busiek/Ross), probably the best introduction ever to Marvel Comics.

I don't know why DC and Marvel don't make anthology series based on comics like Marvel Spotlight and DC Showcase (in live action), where, kind off like What If, new characters could be introduced in a single short story, it would really help with the further consolidation of their universes.

[introvert]

Imagine what Captain America Civil War what have looked like if they had more characters.

[sunsetvibe]

Intro-0:00
Phase 1
The Amazing Spider-Man (2008)-3:05
X-Men (2008)-4:58
The Fantastic Four (2010)-5:41
The Incredible Hulk (2011)-6:35
Wolverine Origins (2011)-7:34
The Avengers (2012)-8:10

Phase 2
The Spectacular Spider-Man (2013)-9:25
X-Men: Apocalypse (2013)-10:17
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2014)-11:02
The Wolverine (2024)-11:51
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)-12:33
Deadpool (2015)-13:05

Phase 3
Avengers vs X-Men (2016)-14:33
Planet Hulk (2016)-15:34
Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man (2017)-16:05
Wolverine: X-23 (2017)-17:37
Fantastic Four: Into the Negative Zone (2017)-18:22
Black Panther (2018)-19:09
Avengers: Infinity War (2018)- 19:38
Dr Strange (2018)-20:22
Captain Marvel (2019)-20:57
Avengers: Endgame (2019)-21:16
Deadpool 2 (2019)-23:26

[themasterdude]

A cool idea you could do is what a cinematic universe would look like if DC and Marvel had one big cinematic universe where the characters interact with each other or if you want to continue the perfect version series you could do the perfect versions of each member of the suicide squad.

[TheVladMan.]

Do a video on what would happen if Batman Begins (2005) and Superman Returns (2006) started the DC Cinematic Universe.

[poogoceoofrandom]

Captain America wasn't a b-list superhero in fact he was actually one of Marvel's more popular Heroes just not as popular as Wolverine or Spiderman

[leonjohanlon]

Would love to see a phase 4-6 of this idea

[zaina]

This could be a dumb question but maybe you should do a universe where it’s both dc and marvel shared.

[reannagordon]

If Marvel got all the rights back to their characters they could rebrand themselves as the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse (MCM) and have various universes other than the MCU. The Marvel Cinematic Raimiverse (MCR) for Tobey’s Spider-Man, the Marvel Cinematic Webbverse (MCW) for Andrew. I always thought the 2005 Fantastic 4 took place in Tobey’s universe but they could have their own universe called the Marvel Cinematic Foxverse (MCF).

[literallyvigilante]

Love these what if style of videos, keep up the great work dude 👍

[whatthejim]

Awesome video, this is a really cool idea for a what if scenario! Well done The Black Lion, I appreciate how much time was taken here!!!😃👍☮️❤️

[mrman]

I was skeptical at first but you tied it all together very nicely. Keep it up!