Find out why Man-Thing is back with Marvel Studios. Since last year, a question that keeps coming up is why does Lions Gate own Man-Thing? We finally updated our Marvel movie rights infographic and took the opportunity to put him in the right place.
First of all, Man-Thing
is a creature made out of swamp muck that has no brain, is inhumanly
strong, but is driven with the impulse to burn anyone with strong
emotions. He was originally a scientist named Ted Sallis that was
working on a “super soldier” serum similar to what created Captain
America. He was ambushed by the scientific terrorist group Advanced
Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) and betrayed by his love Ellen Brandt. After
escaping from A.I.M. he injects himself with the serum, turns into the
creature known as Man-Thing and began patrolling the Florida swamp
where he had his accident.
He was created by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway and Gray Morrow in 1971 and first appeared in Savage Tales
#1. Thomas said, “Stan Lee called me in; it would’ve been late ’70 or
early ’71. […] He had a couple of sentences or so for the concept — I
think it was mainly the notion of a guy working on some experimental
drug or something for the government, his being accosted by spies, and
getting fused with the swamp so that he becomes this creature. The
creature itself sounds a lot like “the Heap”, but neither of us
mentioned that character at the time.” While his origin sounds similar
to Swamp Thing, it came out over a year before DC. “Gerry and I thought
that, unconsciously, the origin in Swamp Thing #1 was a bit too similar
to the origin of Man-Thing a year-and-a-half earlier.” Thomas said,
“There was vague talk at the time around Marvel of legal action, but it
was never really pursued. I don’t know if any letters even changed
hands between Marvel and DC. […] We weren’t happy with the situation
over the Swamp Thing #1 origin, but we figured it was an accident.
Gerry was rooming with [Swamp Thing creator] Len [Wein] at the time and tried to talk him into
changing the Swamp Thing’s origin. Len didn’t see the similarities, so
he went ahead with what he was going to do. The two characters verged
off after that origin, so it didn’t make much difference, anyway.”
In February 2004, the film production and distribution company Lions
Gate Entertainment merged with Artisan Entertainment and aquired the
movie rights to Iron Fist, Black Widow, Man-Thing and The Punisher. A
Man-Thing movie was put into development as a planned Straight-to-DVD
home video. Lions Gate would provide Marvel with licensing fees
for character rights and fund all of the development, production,
distribution and marketing for each title. Marvel would work on
creative development and production. Both companies would share in the
profits from the venture. The Man-Thing
TV movie was directed by Brett Leonard and written by Hans Rodionoff
starring Matthew Le Nevez and Rachael Taylor. The film was planned to
be substatially different from the comics and is described this way,
“Kyle Williams saw his return as a
sheriff to his hometown of Baywater as a career opportunity. What he
couldn’t have foreseen was the reawakening of an ancient power in the
swampy river branch – a power as old and horrible as the swamp itself.
A spirit called ‘Mantokwe’ by the natives – the Man-Thing. Frederick
Schist, owner of a resident oil firm, has lied and betrayed the local
natives – and is now exploiting their land. To cover up his
machinations, he has killed two men and left their bodies to the swamp.
Kyle must now choose between what is right and a career supported by
Schit’s great influence and power. He must find the power to face his
past, the demonic Man-Thing and survive.”
After the success of Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000), M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable (2000) and Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002)
the film was moved to a theatrical release to captialize on the success
of superheroes. Reportedly, the movie was so bad that the test audience
walked out before it was finished. So, Marvel put it back on video in
the U.S., but did release it internationally in places like Russia and
the United Arab Emirates. It aired on the Sci-Fi Channel as a “Sci-Fi
Original” movie in 2005. The film was a disaster.
Since then there were some developments that hinted that Marvel again acquired the rights to Man-Thing. First, in 2013, Iron Man Three cast
Stephanie Szostak as a character known as Brandt. Many made the
connection to Ellen Brandt and also pointed to the burn on her face as
proof that she’s the same character.
Then, in 2014, the season one
episode “Nothing Personal” of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D has Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) asking “Who or what is a Man-Thing?” You can watch it below at the 0:28 mark.
While movie and TV rights are not the same, the fact that Maria Hill is
a Marvel Cinematic Universe character and the show shares the same
universe with the movies leads people to assume Man-Thing is back with
Marvel. This hasn’t been officially confirmed because no one cares
Marvel doesn’t care about Man-Thing. That said, Screen Rant says the guy’s back with Marvel, so we’ll call it official.
Update: Man-Thing made his official debut in Werewolf By Night (2022) on Disney+.
Welcome back Man-Thing! Can’t wait for your big screen debut in 2045!
What do you think of Man-Thing? Do you think he’d make a good movie or should he just guest star?
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<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="33598 ">9 Comments
Think he'd do better as a guest star.
If the movie was released as a SyFy original, you know it was bad.
Man-Thing sounds horrific. I've never heard of him before.
When I heard the movie was going to be horror it made sense based on the character but I was sorely disappointed. Maybe someday they'll go that route.
Definitely a Sci-Fi original although Sharknado was fun 🙂
You're right, of all the play-by-plays I've done of SyFy movies, Sharknado was the most fun.
It does sound like Swamp Thing and wasn't there a tv series of that? So maybe it'll be in Phase 2 of the Netflix shows.
There was no confirmation on Man-Thing rights from Marvel, because nobody asked Marvel or Feige about the rights.
Man-Thing is a unique character. Unfortunately the movie failed to keep true to the comics and was much more like Swamp Thing, growing out of people and having vine tentacles. M-T lives in Florida not Louisiana.
There are other clues in other recent Marvel productions that Man-Thing will be back, one of the Thor movies mentions "The Nexus of All Realities" home of M-T, and of course Howard the Duck at the very end of Guardians of the Galaxy.
For the second M-T movie the origin story is written, follow it. There will have to be more story blended in and I would suggest M-T, vol. 1, # 2 or # 9 and 10. M-T, vol. 2. # 9. Adventure into Fear # 18, if you want to bring businessman Schist back into the picture. Last of my suggestions for today Giant Size M-T # 4.
Some may suggest M-T vol.1 # 5 and 6, I think the supernatural and possible religious factors may overwhelm an audience unless the screen writer and director are very careful.
I think it'd be cool if they used Man-Thing as the focus of every AoS Halloween episode. Maybe even use him for other Marvel television Halloween episodes or something.