Where’s Spiderman? A dramatic split between Disney’s Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures has fans devastated over the uncertain future of the Spiderman character.
Twitter and the entire “web” were stunned to hear that Spider-Man may no longer appear in Marvel movies. Though seen as a cornerstone Marvel Superhero, Spider-Man film rights belong to Sony Productions. Negotiations over the film rights to the beloved character have reportedly fallen through.
Since 1998, Sony has owned the rights to the Spider-Man character and went on to produce three successful Spider-Man films directed by Sam Raimi. We all remember the days when Tobey Maguire was playing the web-slinger. Sony tried to reboot the character with a new version of Spider-man, portrayed by Andrew Garfield in “The Amazing Spider-Man” series. The reboot was released in 2012 and the sequel in 2014, which flopped. In 2015, Sony and Marvel Studios agreed to a deal where Sony co-financed all Spiderman movies that appeared in the thriving Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The modern version of Spider-Man is played by Tom Holland, and has been an integral part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since he was introduced in the 2016 film, “Captain America: Civil War”. Just a year later, Holland starred alongside Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man in the film “Spider-Man: Homecoming”. Seeing the young Peter Parker turn to dust in 2018’s “Avengers Infinity War” and return to help save the universe in the highest-grossing movie of all time, “Avengers Endgame”, gave us all the feels we could ever imagine over a two movie stretch. Just over a month later, Spidey delivered over a billion dollars in the box office for the summer solo film “Spider-man: Far from Home”.
When the time for renegotiation arrived this summer, Disney proposed a 50/50 stake on all Spider-Man financing and profits. Sony declined and proceeded to publicly blame Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige in what has been an ugly saga. A Sony representative spoke of Feige stating, “We are disappointed, but respect Disney’s decision to not have him continue as a lead producer of our next live-action Spider-Man film.”
Kevin Feige later said at a Disney Expo, “It was never meant to last forever.”
Though the comments don’t sound too promising, there are financial pros for both studios if they were to agree. Negotiations are still rumored to be taking place, and fans are anxious to find out what happens. Let’s remain optimistic that we will see the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man appear next to the Avengers again.