That isn't true at all. There was a conscious choice to not use the top tier Marvel characters in case it bombed, thereby protecting Cap and Thor for future licensing and sale. It was thoroughly discussed at the time.
Actually no, the guy (
@overgeeked ) you're replying to is half right. Marvel sold off movie rights left and right during the 90s to stay afloat as a comic company.
From the late 1970s through the early 1990s,
Marvel Comics Group/
Marvel Entertainment Group (MEG) sold options to studios to produce films based on
Marvel Comics characters. One of Marvel's superheroes,
Spider-Man, was optioned in the late 1970s, and rights reverted to Marvel without a film being produced within the allocated time frame. From 1986 to 1996, most of Marvel's major characters were optioned, including the
Fantastic Four,
X-Men,
Daredevil,
Hulk,
Silver Surfer, and
Iron Man. Marvel's first big-screen adaptation of one of its properties was the 1986 film
Howard the Duck, which was a
box-office flop.
MEG was purchased by
New World Entertainment in November 1986 and moved to produce films based on the Marvel characters. It released
The Punisher (1989) before MEG was sold to
Ronald Perelman's
Andrews Group. Two other films were produced:
Captain America (1990) released in the United Kingdom on screens and direct to video in the United States, and
The Fantastic Four (1994), not intended for release.
The first film packaged and licensed by Marvel Studios was
Blade, based on the vampire hunter
Blade. The film was directed by
Stephen Norrington and starred
Wesley Snipes as Blade. It was released on August 21, 1998, grossing $70,087,718 in the United States and Canada and $131,183,530 worldwide.
Blade was followed by
X-Men, which was directed by
Bryan Singer and was released on July 14, 2000.
X-Men grossed $157,299,717 in the United States and Canada and $296,250,053 worldwide.
Blade and
X-Men demonstrated that widely popular films could be made out of comic book characters not familiar to the general public.
Leading up to
X-Men's release, Marvel Studios negotiated a deal with then-functional
Artisan Entertainment, successful with the low-budget
The Blair Witch Project, for a co-production joint venture that included rights to 15 Marvel characters including
Captain America,
Thor,
Black Panther,
Iron Fist, and
Deadpool. Artisan would finance and distribute while Marvel would develop licensing and merchandising tie-ins. The resulting production library, which would also include television series, direct-to-video films and internet projects, would be co-owned.By 2001, the success of Marvel Entertainment's
Ultimate Marvel imprint comics created leverage in Hollywood for Marvel Studios, pushing more properties into development