So, to anyone that has brought their Marvel fandom from the floppy page to the big screen, it is clear that not all Marvel characters are interacting with each other at the movie theater.  Marvel Studios is attempting to create a move continuity with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a groundbreaking idea that they have done incredible things with.  Problem is, they already had sold off some of their most popular characters before doing this.  Fox, for example, is trying to creating its own Marvel movie universe with their characters.

So who owns what exactly?  Inspired by the Tech Times’ coverage, we are trying to piece together a complete list of what movie studios own what Marvel characters.  Below we are starting with the studios that are not a part of the Marvel Studios project.

We are also going to intentionally leave out two companies, Universal Studios and Paramount.  Universal still claims that they have the rights to the Incredible Hulk, which they got from their Ang Lee Hulk film.  This is debatable, and it is certainly not the present situation.  Paramount just had distribution rights over the first round of MCU projects, except The Incredible Hulk, but that is not the same as character ownership.  All of this also changed when Disney stepped in.

20th Century Fox

-X-Men

This means all of the characters that have appeared in the six Brian Singer films, and those generally considered to be X-Men.  This can be debated because of the mixed universe and shifting teams at Marvel, but we have a general idea of who they own.

• Wolverine
• Storm
• Professor X
• Beast
• Quicksilver (Appeared on a non-Fox Avengers film, but name was not mentioned.)
• Scarlette Witch (Appeared on a non-Fox Avengers film, but name was not mentioned.)
• Rogue
• Iceman
• Jean Gray
• Cyclops
• Magneto
• Nightcrawler
• Sabretooth
• Juggernaut
• Jubilee
• Collosus
• Mystique
• Pyro

-Fantastic Four

• Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic)
• Susan Storm (Invisible Woman)
• Human Torch
• The Thing

-Silver Surfer

-Deadpool

-X-Factor

Sony Pictures

-Spider-Man

This also includes a few related characters, which could include:

• Venom
• Spider-Woman
• Sinister Six

Disney

The vast majority are owned by Disney now after the final acquisition of Marvel in 2009.  So all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films are from Disney owned characters, as are all the ones that are going to come out and all of those that have yet to be mentioned by a previous sale to a different studio.

-Avengers

• Captain America
• Iron Man
• Thor
• Black Widow
• Hawkeye
• The Falcon
• Captain Marvel

-Daredevil

-Agents of SHIELD

-Agent Carter

-Ant-Man

-Inhumans

-Guardians of the Galaxy

-Ms. Marvel

This list could actually go on and on since they own pretty much all of them, but these are the most relevant for current film purposes.

So even though Disney has the vast majority of these projects, it is clear that Fox has a huge number of the most notable characters at Marvel.  They have tried to shift to many other characters at Marvel, but you never really undo the popularity of Wolverine, Deadpool, and the X-Men as a whole.  Spider-Man is going to come over on loan from Sony for a shared film in 2017, which is going to be critical for the Civil War films.  This could be a good relationship between Sony and Disney, but we do not expect that to happen with Fox and Disney.