$750 million lawsuit filed against Marvel Entertainment.

Guess it’s settled whether there’s money in that franchise, huh?

According to the Associated Press, a lawsuit was filed yesterday in a Manhattan federal court on behalf of four shareholders of Stan Lee Media, Inc. against Stan Lee, his partner Arthur Lieberman, his wife Joan Clayton, Marvel Entertainment, Inc. and producer Avi Arad. The four unnamed shareholders are seeking more then $750 million in profits from films based on Marvel characters, including “Spider-Man,” “X-Men” and “Iron Man.”

While details are still trickling in regarding specifics to the case, the AP reports that the lawsuit claims profits from Lee’s comic creations belong to the company after emerging from bankruptcy in 2006. The suit claims Lee and the others named in the proceedings ignored the company and shareholder’s interests.

I came across this while looking up Watchmen info – see Moe succumb to the Fanboy side of the Force! Succumb, Moe, succumb! – and while I figure that this will probably get settled it’s still a little interesting. I mean, sure, between the Spiderman movies and the X-Men films and the entire Iron Manmy-God-it’s-full-of-Tony-Starks” thing Marvel must be a hot commodity right now. Still, 750 million’s nothing to sneeze at – even if they’re hoping to “only” score a 100 million or so.

Moe Lane

PS: Watchmen comes out in March; Star Trek’s still up for May.  And I don’t know what’s going to be the big summer must-see movies, yet.