Giving rights without clauses of reversion down the line can cause all kinds of chaos and almost always leads to long term regrets from the original rights holders; just look at Marvel (now Disney) and the fact that several major franchises are held onto by other studios that'll do anything to death grip them.
Actually the irony is what would get them back under one roof (and about the only thing) is if one part of the IP
tanks, badly, then someone shows interest in trying to revive it: i.e. what happened to get Hulk back to Marvel.
In other words if, say, Catalyst catastrophically tanked the franchise and Smith & Tinker decided to resurrect it, they might have a chance to repurchase rights. I can safely say this is
not a good scenario, however, since it's rare for this to work out and the IP to avoid crash & burn in the process: It's better we continue the delicate copyright dance we have going than risk that.
Edited by Victor Morson, 21 May 2012 - 09:05 PM.