The Avengers

Disney Appears To Respond To Avengers Suitcase Lawsuit

Something is happening with the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase One Collector’s Set, which would have collected the Marvel Studios movies on Blu Ray.

It has been widely reported that Rimowa is suing Marvel and Disney for the use of their Topas attaché case, as seen in the Avengers movie, as a fancy prop replica for their collection, without license.

As a result, Amazon has stopped taking preorders and it has the item under review.

Disney removed the briefcase pictures from its site, leaving only a placeholder image.

And the description has changed from:

Immerse yourself in every aspect of Marvel’s Super Heroes with this limited-edition, 10-disc Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One Collection. Complete with interactive glowing Tesseract, this exclusive replica of the iconic S.H.I.E.L.D. briefcase includes stunning Blu-ray 3D and Blu-ray presentations of The Avengers; Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor, as well as Blu-ray versions of Iron Man; Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk in exclusive collectible packaging.

to:

Immerse yourself in every aspect of Marvel’s elite Super Heroes with this limited-edition, 10-disc Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One Collection. Complete with glowing Tesseract, this collectible gift set includes stunning Blu-ray 3D™ and Blu-ray™ presentations of The Avengers; Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor, as well as Blu-ray™ versions of Iron Man; Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk in exclusive collectible packaging.

Emphasis mine.

And it looks like some purchasers are now getting information about delays/cancellations:

I’ve got the set preordered and paid off at Moviestop, after reading the thread I just called them and was told they received a e-mail from Disney saying that this will not be released on 25 September, the e-mail said it may be released at a later time. At the moment they are checking to see if they can return the movies that were traded in for all those who preordered the set.

Basically picture a bunch of Marvel lawyers running around in a panic, in the knowledge that someone seriously fucked up on this… and a lot of legal papers being stuffed into very real briefcases indeed.