How much money were Eastman and Laird offered by Marvel?

[Monty Mole]

In one of the Cartoonist Kayfabe videos with Eastman and Laird, they talked about how they almost took partnership with Marvel, but decided to pass on it because they wanted full say over their creation.

Was the offer really low? Or were they just more passionate about keeping the rights back then?

[Powder]

No figures were ever made public, but Pete did say a number of other groups had made offers that all paled in comparison to Viacom, for what that's worth. But yeah, it was also important to him that he retain the right to do his own thing with TMNT to a certain extent, & I suppose they may have been the only ones willing to play ball on that front.

[CyberCubed]

Viacom paid $60 million for TMNT from Mirage in 2009. So I imagine it was less than that.

In retrospect Mirage made out like a bandit. $60 million is pretty insane and I know PL gave some to Mirage staffers but I wonder where all that money went. As far as I know Eastman didn't get any of that $60 million because he wasn't with Mirage for decades.

[Powder]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Viacom paid $60 million for TMNT from Mirage in 2009. So I imagine it was less than that.

In retrospect Mirage made out like a bandit. $60 million is pretty insane and I know PL gave some to Mirage staffers but I wonder where all that money went. As far as I know Eastman didn't get any of that $60 million because he wasn't with Mirage for decades.

Roughly 11 million went to buying out 4kids, right?

[CyberCubed]

Ah yeah, forgot about that. Yeah 4kids got some money and that's why Viacom owns the 2003 series.

But still where did all that money go after 2009? Peter Laird was already a millionaire, and getting 30-40+ or whatever million on top of what he had was pretty insane. I remember Jim Lawson and Dan Berger said they got "a little" money after the buyout, but I imagine it wasn't much. Neither of them appear to be millionaires after all.

[Sumac]

TMNT as part of MCU?
While MCU is bad right now, it could have been pretty awesome a its peak.
Oh, well.

[neatoman]

I... Really don't think TMNT under Marvel (or DC for that matter) would be that great. Maybe in the sense that you'd get a few stronger TMNT stories and really good omnibus collections, but the drawbacks would be obvious. First off, the odds are that there would not be much of a push to keep the series going after a while, I'm not really seeing a scenario in which TMNT keeps being published for 100+ issues in favor of another X-Men spin-off. The worst case scenario in terms of TMNT's continued publishing is that Marvel would just publish a five issue mini every tenth year to keep the trademark. Secondly, it is very likely Marvel would attempt to "streamline" TMNT's lore to the point where it becomes little more than background noise to Marvel's general lore. So for example, The Foot becomes a splinter faction of the Hand and is just absorbed back into it, the Triceratons become the creations of the High Evolutionary, D'Hoonib becomes a Kree world, the ooze was created from the Super-Soldier formula, etc, etc, etc. And finally, they could just join the ranks of a long line of Marvel characters who are treated like disposable jokes if the concept is even slightly silly.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Viacom paid $60 million for TMNT from Mirage in 2009. So I imagine it was less than that.

In retrospect Mirage made out like a bandit.

Did they, though? I know TMNT isn't as big as Star Wars, but it's pretty big and has been pretty vast in different pockets of time. George Lucas got 6 BILLION for Star Wars.

60 million for TMNT vs. 6 billion for Star Wars. When you put the two on a scale, it doesn't quite balance out. Like, on that scale... then OK, about 1 billion for TMNT, at least. 60 million seems like pocket change in comparison.

[Coola Yagami]

Eh, they kinda dodged a bullet there. I wouldn't want the Turtles to be shoe-horned into the overall MCU, nor do I want them to be ruined alongside modern day Marvel. I don't want an issue where Captain Marvel swoops in, makes the Turtles look useless in their own book while they spend most of the issue kissing her ass.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Did they, though? I know TMNT isn't as big as Star Wars, but it's pretty big and has been pretty vast in different pockets of time. George Lucas got 6 BILLION for Star Wars.

60 million for TMNT vs. 6 billion for Star Wars. When you put the two on a scale, it doesn't quite balance out. Like, on that scale... then OK, about 1 billion for TMNT, at least. 60 million seems like pocket change in comparison.

Well you also have to remember this was 2009, at this point:

- The Mirage comics were barely a blip on the radar. Literally nobody was buying them besides us hardcore TMNT fans. Dan Berger said PL lost a fortune on every issue of Vol. 4 and Tales they published

- The 2003 cartoon was ending around then, and while the show was a success, it wasn't even half as popular as the original cartoon was or made anywhere as much money.

- The 2007 movie didn't really do well at the box office, made a profit but was nothing special


At that point everyone saw TMNT in the 2000's wasn't even half as popular as it was from the late 80's through halfway into the 90's, so that's probably how much they thought it was worth at the time. Had PL made the sale around 1995 or something...he probably would have gotten much more.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Had PL made the sale around 1995 or something...he probably would have gotten much more.

True. Though in 1995 he'd have to split it 2 ways.