Board Thread:Admin Noticeboard/@comment-25285745-20160604191412/@comment-24734624-20160611185708

The King of the Monsters wrote: Why would Legendary sell the rights to Universal? There's no profit in it for them, and companies don't just transfer rights to films out of the goodness of their heart. All it would do is add an unnecessary middleman and complicate the process. Legendary already went through the trouble of moving Kong: Skull Island to WB to consolidate all of the Godzilla/Kong cinematic universe under a single distributor. Toho's deal was made with Legendary and Warner Bros., so WB is acting as the co-producer and distributor in all countries except Japan. There's no practical reason for Legendary to add another third party to the cinematic universe, it's easiest for WB to handle all distribution. Universal gave Legendary the rights to Kong, and that's the extent of their involvement. Legendary and Universal will still be collaborating outside of the Godzilla and Kong films, but there's no logical reason for Universal to increase its involvement with the Godzilla and Kong films. I'm sure Universal probably automatically receives a cut anyway because of their ownership of Kong.

I don't really see a reason to want Universal to have greater involvement in the Godzilla series anyway. They clearly don't really have any interest, as their only Godzilla home video release is the barebones King Kong vs. Godzilla DVD and Blu-ray. Universal has a lot of resources and is a professional distributor, but they themselves have shown they aren't willing to sink a lot of resources into a Godzilla film release. The best-case scenario is that a different company like FUNimation or DreamWorks Classics handles the release and Universal just distributes it. Universal themselves would just release another bland release with only one audio track and no special features. If we're lucky, DreamWorks Classics might release the Godzilla films they have the rights to on Blu-ray and retain all the features from the DVDs, and maybe do a better release for King Kong vs. Godzilla as well since they have access to that film through Universal now. I really don't care who releases a Godzilla film so long as they do the best job possible. I don't want Universal to release a movie just because it's Universal. I wasn't talking Legendary selling them to Universal. I meant putting them through their distribution deal with Universal. Legendary keeps the non-Japan/non-North America distribution rights for themselves. Wanda Media and Legendary East distribute in China and their distribution partner (current one being Universal) distributes everywhere else.