True. But for $25 million, they would only have needed just a small fraction of MCU success to see a massive reward from their investment.
Sure,
possibly good for Sony's finances but I reckon worse for fans of superhero films. Marvel Studios are focussed only on Marvel IP, Sony Studios are not.
Their success with Spider-Man alone would have easily justified that level of investment. The investment could have easily been amortized across a couple of Wolverine and X-men films, a few Saturday morning cartoons and a slate of games.
Equally, Sony might have called it quits if they had a dud like the Amazing Spider-Man movies. When films don't do great, there is usually a hiatus. This is never more apparent than superhero franchises which get paused and rebooted.
It’s like going to McDonald for a $7 combo and they’re offering one of everything on the entire menu for 25 bucks. LOL.
This is a great analogy, but why would you spend three times as much on something that has no value because you can't eat it? You're looking at this roster of characters now, as Marvel has developed a couple of dozen of key ones, across more than a dozen MCU movies and a good half-dozen MC TV shows.
Outside of comic book fans I'd wager few knew who the hell half of these heroes were. When I saw the post-credits scene in The Incredible Hulk, I had no idea who Robert Downey Jr's character was. When I first saw Thor I didn't know Hawkeye so his cameo in the film just passed me by. Ditto when Nick Fury appeared at the end of Iron Man. Maybe known to comic book readers but probably not to the mainstream cinema-going public.
People pay for something with value. Why pay any money for characters that few people know, you may as well create a new character without paying any licence. And this is very likely why until the MCU, your mainstream superhero movies were limited to Superman, Spider-Man, and X-Men. The success of the first two X-Men movies and first Toby Maguire Spider-Man movie resulted in punts being taken with the Hulk and The Fantastic Four. They were failures by commercial cinema standards.
Consider that one of the most popular characters in the MCU is Agent Phil Coulson, who was only created for the movies, i.e. an original non-licensable character.
I would of been, “They’re offering what for how much!!!?” “Hell yes!!!!” “We can make that back selling Wolverine branded Ginsu knives!!!”
Again, you're looking at the value of the characters in recent times not when Sony made that decision. Sony were probably looking at Wolverine and wondering if this guy is Freddy Krueger's son.