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This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

Following

Franchise Ownership Acquisition

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As modern commercial fiction works are made to make a profit, unsurprisingly entertainment franchises and other intellectual properties have sometimes changed hands from one owner to another. This can happen either by way of one company directly buying the Intellectual Property from the current owner and/or the buying or merging of one company into another. What happens when a new owner is at the helm can result in all sorts of changes to the characters, settings, continuity, and other plot elements (e.g. Darker and Edgier, Lighter and Softer, Denser and Wackier, Hotter and Sexier, etc) as those new creators apply their own Creator Thumbprint to that franchise.

For a related concept see Channel Hop where the franchise changes to a new television channel or other kind of distributor (e.g. movie studio, comic/magazine/book publisher), but the franchise itself otherwise can remain with the original group and/or creative team that owns it. See also Coca-Pepsi, Inc., specifically its real-life section, for cases of other mergers between directly competing companies.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 

    Asian Animation 
  • GG Bond is produced by Winsing Animation, but was created by BlueArc Animation, being sold off to Winsing Animation after the fourth season due to Winsing needing some shows to develop to keep their infancy from becoming a problem. The fifth season was the first one to be produced by Winsing.

    Comics 
  • American Dreams (2021) was originally published by Atlas Studios before being sold to Band of Bards Comics.
  • DC Comics:
  • Dead@17 started off as a Viper Comics property before the sequel miniseries were acquired by Image Comics.
  • Lady Death was originally published by Chaos! Comics, then got sold to CrossGen when Chaos folded, then got acquired by Avatar Press when CrossGen folded, then ended up at Boundless Comics, a new imprint created specifically for Lady Death comics, before finally being reacquired by creator Brian Pulido and his new company, Coffin Comics.
  • Madman was originally self-published, then went to Caliber Comics, then Kitchen Sink Press, then Dark Horse Comics, and finally transferred over to Image Comics.
  • Marvel Comics:
    • In 1994, Marvel bought another comics publisher, Malibu Comics, who had created such comic series as The Ultraverse and Men in Blacknote  after Malibu went bankrupt that year. Some Ultraverse characters saw some crossovers with Marvel's main universe and vice versa during the 1990s, but this ceased after the year 2000. The Men in Black have not been featured in the Marvel universe and that title has largely remained its own continuity.
    • Marvel was then bought by Disney in 2009.
    • In 2013 Marvel acquired the rights to the Miracleman series, republished the earlier and long-sought-after Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman runs on the title, and gave Gaiman the chance to continue his original planned storylines.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird founded Mirage Studios in 1983 in order to publish the stories of the heroes in a half-shell and other comics. While the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would be subject to Channel Hop throughout the years, Eastman and Laird would remain at the helm of their comic adventures and rights over the broader franchise. They would sell the franchise in 2009 to Paramount Global while comics (as one of the terms made in the binding contract to sell TMNT) would continue to be made by IDW Publishing.
  • Red Sonja was a Marvel Comics character from her creation in 1973 to 1995. The rights to the character have since been acquired by "Red Sonja, LLC". Since 2005, that company has licensed the publication of Sonja's comics stories by Dynamite Comics.
  • Dark Horse Comics was the independent publisher made famous by such franchises as Hellboy and Sin City. Since 2022, Dark Horse has become a subsidiary of the Swedish gaming company Embracer Group. The parent company now owns Dark Horse's original characters.

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • Digital Devil Story are a series of novels that were written by Aya Nishitani in the 1980s. Atlus would adapt the novels into a video game, Megami Tensei, in 1987. In 1992, Atlus would outright buy the rights to the franchise from the author after which the Shin Megami Tensei series would become one of Atlus's Cash Cow Franchises.
  • In 1999, J. K. Rowling sold the rights to the Harry Potter series to Warner Bros.. However, due to the phenomenal popularity of the books, she was able to negotiate an unusual level of creative control, which still restricts what Warners can and can't do with the Potter franchise.
  • Guinness World Records was owned by the aptly named Guinness Superlatives for decades. The group was later purchased by beverage company Diageo. In 2001, Gullane Entertainment purchased Guinness PLC, and Gullane itself was bought by HIT Entertainment just one year later. In 2008, HIT's then-parent company, Apax Partners, sold Guinness World Records to the Jim Pattinson Group of Ripley's Believe It or Not! fame.
  • The Railway Series has burned through many different owners, with its television adaptation Thomas & Friends having a hand in its numerous owners over time. The first twenty-one books were published by Edmund Ward Publishers, which merged with Nicholas Kaye Limited in 1967 to form Kaye & Ward Limited. They were still the owners of the book series until 1997, when The Britt Allcroft Company purchased the rights following the Rev. W. Awdry's death. The Britt Allcroft Company's properties then went to Gullane Entertainment in 2000 after Thomas and the Magic Railroad derailed at the box office. Then in 2002, HIT Entertainment purchased Gullane, along with the entire Thomas franchise (except Magic Railroad, which is owned by Sony). Finally, in 2012, Mattel bought out HIT Entertainment.
  • The Winnie the Pooh children's book series, from which the wider Winnie the Pooh franchise originates, were originally published in 1926 by A. A. Milne who then sold the rights to Stephen Slesinger, Inc. in 1930. That company in turn sold the franchise to Disney in 1966 which would expand into a multitude of animated television series and features. Notably, the original book entered the U.S. public domain in 2022, allowing for the non-Disney-produced horror parody Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey, but of course, Disney still owns their version.

    Live-Action TV 
  • The Power Rangers series was originally created by Saban Entertainment by way of repurposing some footage from Super Sentai. Disney would buy the series as part of a larger sale of Saban and Fox Family Worldwide properties from News Corporation in 2001. In addition, this also prompted a channel hop from Fox Kids to ABC Kids during the airing of Power Rangers Wild Force. Saban Brands, the Successor entity of Saban Entertainment, would buy back the Power Rangers series in 2010 from Disney, of which reportedly higher-ups at that company were displeased with the Power Rangers series being part of the Disney company's catalog due to its unfitting nature, thus ushering in the "Neo-Saban" era of the series. In 2018, history repeated, though this time with the franchise being bought out by Hasbro.
  • The rights to Star Trek have changed hands several times through corporate mergers and acquisitions. It started off being owned by Desilu Studios, which was bought by Paramount while the original series was still in production. There was later a period in the 2000s and 2010s where the film rights and TV rights were split between respectively Paramount and CBS by their mutual parent company National Amusements, which caused legal headaches for licensees like Star Trek Online creator Cryptic Studios.

    Music 

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech and Shadowrun were both created by FASA, but after the company went bankrupt in 2001 the rights to both games were acquired by WizKids (which was founded by a former FASA alumni) and licensed out to FanPro to continue producing products for both games. Then in 2003, WizKids was acquired by Topps. After this, employees of FanPro would go on to create their own company, Catalyst Game Labs, which then acquired the license for BattleTech and Shadowrun. Catalyst eventually made a bid to buy ownership of both games from Topps, but this was unsuccessful and so the company continues to license them.
  • Champions underwent a barely visible but significant transfer; the rights to the setting (but not the rules) were purchased outright by Cryptic Studios when they wanted to use it for an MMORPG. The rights were then licensed back to Hero Games for the tabletop game. Cryptic were themselves subsequently acquired by Gearbox Software.
  • Dungeons & Dragons was originally published by TSR, who suffered some internal power struggles and changes of ownership before eventually going bust and being acquired by Wizards of the Coast, who were in turn later acquired by Hasbro. So it's had three different corporate owners, even if older trademarks were sometimes preserved for a while for the sake of customer goodwill.
  • Traveller is a setting (though it nominally started out as a rule system) that has passed through the hands of a number of publishers, though technically this wasn't a matter of corporate acquisitions. After its original publisher Game Designers Workshop closed down, the rights reverted to designer Marc Miller, who has published a couple of versions and also licensed rights to companies such as Steve Jackson Games, Quick Link Interactive/RPG Realms Publishing, Comstar Games, and Mongoose Games, who used either their own rule systems or heavily revised versions of the original. The result looks like a tangled history of acquisitions from the outside.

    Toys 
  • The first dolls released in the American Girls Collection were made by Germany-based Götz using existing molds from the company that Pleasant Rowland bought the rights to for the Pleasant Company line. The line moved to China for production in the mid 90s, and in 1998 Pleasant Rowland sold the line to toy giant Mattel; they took over in 2000 and have owned and manufactured the brand since.
  • Cabbage Patch Kids were first made by Coleco, then by Mattel in the late '80s until 2000. It went into the hands of Play Along Toys during the 2000s, before being taken by Wicked Cool Toys.
  • Milton Bradley was a company famous for its board games, such as Candy Land, Yahtzee, and Battleship. It became a subsidiary of Hasbro in 1984, meaning that most of its franchises still belong to this company.
  • Stretch Armstrong was originally produced by Kenner from 1976-1980. In 1991, Cap Toys launched a redesigned Stretch Armstrong. Hasbro took over the property in 1997, as a result of owning both Kenner and Cap Toys.
  • Popples were first made by Mattel in the 1980s. In 2001, Toymax got the rights to make them. Six years later, Playmates made their own line of Popples. In 2015, Spin Master made Popples plush dolls and figurines to tie in with the 2015 TV series.
  • Troll Dolls were made by Thomas Dam of Denmark and his company Dam Things in 1959. A few decades later, Dreamworks Animation would not just get the rights to make adaptations in 2011, but outright buy the franchise in 2013.

    Video Games 
  • Atlus, the creator of numerous games and game franchises such as Shin Megami Tensei, Dept. Heaven, Etrian Odyssey, and Power Instinct to name a few of these, had cooperated with Index Corporation throughout its history and was formally acquired by them in 2006. In June 2013, Index was found guilty of financial fraud and went into bankruptcy. Sega Sammy bought Atlus from its embattled parent company in September of that same year. Some of these Atlus properties have been incorporated to some degree in some of Sega's franchises, such as Persona 5 protagonist Joker's outfit being a DLC apparel for the Custom Hero/Avatar in Sonic Forces.
  • The Command & Conquer franchise of Westwood Studios fame was originally owned by Virgin Games, who purchased Westwood in 1992, three years before the first entry of the franchise. The studio, along with the franchise, changed hands in 1998 to Electronic Arts. After Westwood dissolved in 2003, EA continued to own the franchise and make additional entries via various in-house development studios all the way until 2012. In 2020, EA licensed out the first two games to Petroglyph Games, founded by former Westwood staff, for remastering.
  • Commandos: Pyro Studios ceased to exist in 2017, and Kalypso Media (publisher of Tropico) acquired the rights to the Commandos IP in 2018.
  • Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, the former unofficial mascots of the original PlayStation, have had quite a few owners of them over the years. Though published by Sony Computer Entertainment from 1996-2000, they were both owned by Universal Interactive (a subsidiary of Universal focused on the creation and publication of video games). Universal Interactive held onto the IPs until 2003 when its parent company sold the video game division to Vivendi. Vivendi's game division, originally called "Vivendi Universal Interactive Publishing" then eventually renamed Vivendi Games, was in turn sold to Activision in 2008. Decades later, Activision Blizzard (resulting from a merger with Blizzard Entertainment) would be acquired by Microsoft. The one-time unofficial mascots of the PlayStation brand are now in the possession of a rival video game console manufacturer.
  • The Double Dragon series of Beat 'em Up games was originally made by Technos Japan. Technos Japan went defunct following its bankruptcy in 1996 after which a licensing company, Million Co. Ltd, was formed to hold onto the rights to Double Dragon and other Technos franchises. In 2015, Arc System Works bought the franchises from Million Co. Ltd.
  • The Fallout franchise was originally owned by Interplay and Black Isle Studios before Bethesda bought the rights to the intellectual property from the former in 2007.
  • Gears of War franchise: Originally belonging to Epic Games, in 2014 after the release of Gears of War: Judgement, Microsoft bought the franchise and assigned it to The Coalition. This also had the side effect of them being able to use General RA'AM in Killer Instinct (2013) as a Guest Fighter.
  • Halo was originally owned by Bungie before they split from Microsoft, who kept the rights and formed 343 Industries to continue making Halo games and other media.
  • The Max Payne IP was originally owned by 3D Realms and the developer Remedy Entertainment, before being sold to Rockstar Games in December 2001. Max Payne 2 was developed by Remedy for Rockstar, while Max Payne 3 development took place entirely within the latter, while the former moved on to new original IPs.
  • Metal Max was originally owned by Data East. After Data East went under, the rights to the series eventually found their way to Kadokawa. Kadokawa would later sell the IP to Cygames, as part of the process of divesting its Kadokawa Games studio. The Metal Saga sub-series exists thanks to a brief period of time when the development team was separated from the rights to the "Metal Max" name.
  • Microsoft in The New '10s and into The New '20s has bought some prominent video game developers and publishers and by extension the franchises owned by those companies. Here is some elaboration:
  • Midway Games went bankrupt in 2008 and was out for good in 2009, but all of their franchises were bought by other companies:
  • Puyo Puyo was originally a property of Compile, but Sega bought the rights to it in 1998. Compile was still able to work on Puyo Puyo games until 2001, when it became unable to sustain itself and collapsed, with Puyo Pop (2001) being the first game made by Sega.
  • The Sakura Wars series was originally co-developed and owned by both Red Entertainment and Sega until the latter bought the ownership rights in 2017.
  • The Twilight Syndrome series began its development and publication under Human Entertainment, but following HUMAN's bankruptcy in early 2000, the series was passed on to Spike, who have gone on to produce two more sequels (not counting Spiritual Successor Yuuyami Doori Tankentai, which was released the previous year). This transition also served as a form of Channel Hop, as the Spike subsidiary in charge of the series was largely staffed by former HUMAN employees.
  • The Story of Seasons series (originally titled Harvest Moon) was created and designed by Pack-In Video (and developed by Amccus) in 1996. They were then bought by Victor Interactive Software the next year in 1997, which itself was purchased by Marvelous in 2003 (which has had multiple names) and been under their ownership since.
  • The Total War video game series is made by Creative Assembly and previously published by EA and Activision in 2002. Sega bought out both the franchise and Creative Assembly itself in 2005.
  • World Heroes is a series of Fighting Games originally owned and developed by ADK. SNK acquired the rights to the franchise in 2003 upon ADK's liquidation.

    Web Animation 
  • RWBY was originally created by Rooster Teeth in 2013, but both were soon in the hands of Warner Bros. in 2018 after their short-lived merger with Rooster Teeth’s parent company at the time AT&T, and were still kept by WB even after the split and merger with Discovery Inc. During this time RT made a deal with then-sister company DC Comics to make a Comic-Book Adaptation of RWBY all of which culminated in an animated crossover movie between both properties. However in March 6th, 2024 Warner Bros. Discovery announced the closure of Rooster Teeth with the intention to sell the RWBY IP to another company instead of retaining the rights, meaning that this trope would apply again.

    Western Animation 

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