According to what he has said on his Fatman Returns podcast, several years ago Kevin Smith, together with Marc Bernardin, were asked to do a proposal for a live-action Question project that certain executives were very high on. Apparently, they were ready to present, or had presented and gotten the green light to make at least the pilot, when word came down that there was a “rights issue” and the project had to be shelved. I had to wonder, what were these rights issues, and were they insurmountable? I can see three possibilities:
This is admittedly the most boring, and the most likely: some rando bought the movie or TV rights once upon a time, and while they have no ability to make anything happen, those rights haven't expired. The only thing to do is to wait it out if there's a finite expiration on the rights, or to go through the expense of tracking down the rights holders or their heirs and buying the rights back.
I heard this a few years ago: Charlton was sloppy, and while they may have gotten the rights to use their characters in animation, they never conceived of a live-action version and so failed to secure those rights in the original contracts. In that case, DC wouldn't hold those rights either, as they could only buy what Charlton legally owned and was able to sell. If true, this might be nearly insurmountable, as the original creators or their heirs would all need to be found and releases signed. Fortunately, I no longer think this is very likely, since Peacemaker is included in The Suicide Squad.
This is my own possible theory: Steve Ditko either specifically retained the live-action rights, or else kept some kind of sign-off power so he could veto any live-action use he didn't like. I don't have any concrete evidence, but here is my circumstantial case:
By the time Ditko got to Charlton, he was already a Big Deal, having created Spider-Man. If he wanted some sort of veto over something Charlton didn't think was at all likely to happen, he probably would've gotten it.
We know Ditko was particularly proud of, and protective of, The Question. He was essentially a Comics-Code Approved version of Mr. A.
In the early years of the Arrowverse, there were lots of hints at Ted Kord thrown around; Kord Industries was a thing, his name was on billboards, etc. Brandon Routh's role on Arrow and then Legends always felt a lot more like Ted Kord than Ray Palmer. There were lots of rumors or fan energy around a Blue and Gold movie. Then, all that (except for the fan energy) suddenly vanished. Blue Beetle II, Ted Kord, was created by Steve Ditko for Charlton.
So my crazy fan theory here is, the Estate of Steve Ditko, whoever its beneficiaries may be, may hold some sort of veto power over the use of his Charlton characters, Ted Kord and the Question, in live action. While he was alive, nothing was ever going to be able to be done because Steve probably wouldn't give permission (according to reports, I never met him). Whether anything can happen now would then likely depend on his heirs.
Definitely an interesting theory. I wouldn’t be too surprised if some version of this is true @HanukkahCityQuestion have you heard about any of this? I kind of feel like you’re the go-to person for all Question-related information.
I’m thinking of the characters specifically, not locales like Hub City. Arrow mentioned Kord a lot… and then suddenly stopped before bringing him to the screen (and then instead bringing us Ray Palmer). To me, that screams of something getting called out when WB Legal did their due diligence before actually using the character.
And yes, Smallville DID have a Blue Beetle… Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle III. Ditko didn’t actually create the original Blue Beetle, he created Ted Kord, Blue Beetle II, which is specifically who I’m referring to.
The “different versions” thing also makes me wonder if, even though Vic Sage could be legally difficult to bring to the screen, Renee Montoya might be a possibility. She’s not nearly as different from Vic as the Beetles are from each other, though. (And in that same vein, Sophie Moore as The Question… because tell me that Meagan Tandy wouldn’t look amazing in a fedora.)
Again, I fully admit that this is wild speculation on my part. About the only person other than myself I am sure DOESN’T have the rights is @HanukkahCityQuestion, because if he had them he’d have been on the phone to Michael Uslan ages ago getting advice on making the movie happen.
I have no access to privileged information regarding this, and even if I did, I couldn’t share it. So all I can say is that none of these details have been made available to the public.
Absolutely. As I said, the most likely answer is the boring one: someone with no ability or desire to make a film happen owns the rights. Everything else is my speculation based on the publicly available info and I never intended to imply that you might “know something” or to pressure to divulge it if you did.