In a world where most characters and franchises have fairly simple rights situations, it would be easy to take for granted how cut and dry most of them really are to us outside observers. Great examples are the entire DC Comics catalogue, which is owned by WarnerMedia for the purposes of comics, films, TV, toys, etc; Jurassic Park, which has been in the hands of Universal for almost three decades; and, naturally, Star Wars, fully controlled by Disney and their subsidiary Lucasfilm. Even another Disney owned property, Marvel, whose rights were previously divided all over Hollywood, is now mostly all in the same place (the deal with Sony with regard to Spider-Man will seemingly never expire). If you look back through popular fiction from almost a century ago, however, things get very tricky, and perhaps none are trickier than the titan who returns to cinemas this week, King Kong.
