The superhero movie franchise was not as well developed as in Ian’s previous world. Both Marvel and DC did exist but had very few standalone cartoon shows like 80s spiderman and 90s batman. But that’s it.

Compared to where Ian is now, The Marvel Cinematic Universe in his previous world was a vast franchise that exclusively made so many superhero movies that billions of people adore and are huge fans of.

In his previous world, The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a string of superhero films created by Marvel Studios. The famous films in Ian’s previous world were founded on characters that appeared in the American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

It also contained tv series, short films, digital series, and literature time. The conveyed universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by scratching over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters.

But, for what Ian had in mind, he wanted to contact DC and ask for the rights. DC and Marvel, of course, did exist, but not with the same amount of popularity as they had in the original world. DC was one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies; with their first comic under the DC banner, most of its publications took place within the fictional DC Universe and featured numerous culturally iconic heroic characters, such as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. In addition, it was widely known for some of the most famous and recognizable teams.

Much to Ian’s fortune and a disappointment in a way, other than some cartoons, DC and Marvel had not succeeded in winning the audience's hearts in this world. Instead, they produced a few standalone Live Action movies, like The Fantastic Four for Marvel and Superman for DC.

But they'd become comedies if nothing else. People weren’t that excited to watch them due to many reasons. Out of all their mindsets was how these movies and cartoons were just made for kids, and many films became massive failures.

It would be hard to own copyrights. The cartoon and Live action movie thing they released had become jokes. Because of their unsuccessful attempts at the box office, movie studios gave up on superhero movies. Except sometimes, it would rarely come up in that genre.

Not just one or two, almost all of the studio agreed with Mason’s words due to how true they were. “Ian, DC is now trying to produce the Green Lantern movie, but it’s likely 99.8% a failure, considering the previous projects. And after this, they will surely give up on the Live-Action genre,” Mason said as every word of this was a known fact.

“Hm… Try to contact them, Uncle. I think it would be great if we could buy the Live-Action movies and the cartoons from Panther Studios. Can you ask them about this when you contact them?

“It would be difficult, but I'll try. They held onto these for quite some time now, and it might cost a fortune to buy them. I have a hunch it's possible. Let’s see,” Mason said.

The rest of the meeting was spent talking and discussing future plans, especially about Ian’s next big hits. They also focused on the budget they needed to preserve for every move of theirs, and they made plans based on the current amount they had in hand. In no time, they were curious about what deal could possibly be brought by DC to their table, and Mason knew it wouldn't be easy to negotiate with them.

-

The next day, Ian went to the studio, hoping that an answer from Panther Studio had come, regarding the request they submitted the day before. Normally, for someone like Ian, any company would reply as soon as possible knowing his exposure in the world of Hollywood as of now, which was why he held so much hope.

“Ian, good morning!” Mason greeted just like ever. Their office was renovated and Ian had been given a surprisingly comfortable office room where he was able to work every day at any time with no disturbance. For more ease, he and the assistant had made some ground rules which included times when no one could disturb Ian.

But due to old habits and to know if Panther Studio had replied, Ian went to Mason’s office first.

“Good morning, Uncle. They contacted you I assume?” He asked straightaway.

“Yeah, they did. But the thing is, the CEO of Panther Studios gave us a deal worth $1 billion, which is like a hard pass. Plus I can assure you that the money is not worth it even if you are thinking of buying them for that amount in installments.”

“Of course, I will have to buy them in installments, I have other projects to invest in. I’m not that stupid, the thing is, I myself might have to go and try to talk to them. Can you arrange a meeting today itself? Or would it be too hard?” Ian asked.

“I’ll try, give me a few minutes,” Mason said and walked out of the room to call someone he knew in Panther Studios.

[...] Ian was on his way to meet the Chief Executive Officer of Panther Studios. Ian had never heard about how tough or smooth the man is, but he was surely in the state of making some great deals that can benefit both of them.

The blue walls of the office corridor made Ian feel more chilly than he usually does. Walking inside the glass door, he was met with dark grey eyes and a fat man who looked to be in his 40s, Ahmad Mclean.

“Ian Renner.” Ian smiled and went inside.

“Ahmad Mclean, nice to see you here,” Ahmad replied while signaling Ian to take a seat in front of him. “This is the first time we are meeting and I hope this shouldn’t be the last, so tell me, what can I do for you?” he asked.

“I want to buy the rights for the Live-Action movies and cartoons that Panther has distributed. Also, as you know, I’m someone who works only on good projects that can bring me the exact success I expect them to bring. I'm here to buy the rights from DC because I have been working on a superhero movie script and realized it would be better if I could make a deal that could benefit us both.,” Ian said while politely smiling.

“Hm… That’s intriguing. The thing is, I have seen directors wanting to work on Superhero movies but not after they realized how much of a big failure it can be, we still are trying to uplift the genre, but yeah, as I said I can give the cartoons and the standalone we released for $1 billion,” He said while treating Ian back with the same smile.

“Okay, I understand where you are coming from, how about this….”

A few hours later, just like that Ian made a deal which is beneficial for both the parties. Ian bought the rights for $600 million. It was a bit hard to convince, but it wasn’t impossible. The rules of negotiations were that the Panther Studios would receive profits after a duration of 5 years. Also, among the lines they discussed, it was mentioned that Panther Studios would receive 10% profit from any movie he makes from the DC franchise. Of course, the money would be paid in installments because Ian had other reasons that he couldn’t invest all of it at once.

The meeting continued for more than an hour where they talked about a lot of things. Then after a little while, someone among the directors of Panther studios joined the meeting and listened to Ian’s idea yet had a bad opinion of them. The reason he came late and was there was that Martin Wild was one of the main minds behind the superhero movies that got scripted by Panther Studios.

“I don’t think we should just hand over the rights just like that. The Green Lantern movie, the idea is super awesome I think and I know it could work with some more effort. According to me, it is the best script so far and our directors are all talented. I know it has potential to bring the true colors of the genre. This just can’t be given upon on a request just like this, we should at least wait until Green Lantern is out to see if it works or not.” He insisted on his idea and was talking against the deal between Ian and Ahmad.

Ian managed to handle the situation skillfully and even arranged to meet up with Martin to talk about Green Lantern. However, with how the conversation went on, it was clearly visible that even the CEO had given up a bit on Panther Studios. The contract was typed out within a matter of hours and was sent to Renner Studio the same day itself.

Ian sent it out to the legal team to check whether there were any loopholes in the negotiations. It was mainly because Panther studios might bring up those kinds of loopholes later on when Ian hit the peak with his script and ideas. And as the payment is essentially incomplete, they'd have the ability to make things difficult, if not impossible for Ian to continue. Better to be safe than sorry, Ian knew.