Because of some unique business decisions Marvel made before they became a dominating powerhouse for superhero movies, they sold the film distribution rights to many of their prominent characters. We all know that Fox has the rights to many characters in the X-Men universe. Sony owns the rights to Spider-Man (although they are now “renting” him back to Marvel Studios for all future movies). Many of the main characters ate back with Marvel Studios, which is why we now have the Marvel Cinematic Universe and all its glory. There is one character that fans had been asking about over and over the years, Prince Namor, The Sub-Mariner, which for the longest has been under Universal’s house.
During Kevin Smith’s Fatman On Batman podcast, Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada seemingly confirmed that film rights have returned back to Marvel and Marvel Studios is free to use them for their movies. We haven’t heard much since then bout any film or TV projects in the pipeline for Namor. That might be subject to change, though.
According to the Reel News Hawaii (which chronicles all film happenings going on in our 50th state), recently posted on social media the following:
Now it’s already been confirmed that Marvel Inhumans TV show is filming in Hawaii as well. And since Marvel doesn’t own the term “mutant” (and Namor is technically Marvel’s first mutant), fans are speculating that Namor might show up as an Inhuman on the show. In addition, the website Production Weekly recently updated their website to include that “Sub-Mariner” is currently in production as well. It now seems that we might actually see Namor on a Marvel project sooner or later.There's buzz around the island that two rival productions could be swimming on our waters. "Aquaman" & "Submariner". Fingers crossed! pic.twitter.com/1WLbZkWJAN— Reel News Hawaii (@reelnewshawaii) February 15, 2017
