Most fans know by now that Spider-Man is being shared between Sony and Marvel Studios. The deal in place sees that Sony still owns the on-screen film rights to Spider-Man movies, a deal that has existed since 2002 during the era of Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy. On the other hand, Marvel owns all the merchandising rights for the wall-crawling superhero.
It’s 4th of July Weekend, 2027. You grab a popcorn and soda and watch Uncle Ben die for the 15th time on screen in the freshly rebooted “Ultimate Spider-Man”
— shamus (@shamus_clancy) August 20, 2019
Deadline initially kicked off the reports with IGN soon to follow that sent social media into a fury. Fans, myself included, are literally freaking out about the future of Peter Parker in the MCU, especially since the majority of his storyline is tied to MCU characters like Tony Stark, Nick Fury, and The Avengers. Take those away and things start to get a little muddy in terms of what motivates the character on his own.
The biggest issue with those two movies is they cannot use any existing MCU story. So, can Peter even reference Tony Stark in the next movie? Can they still set it 5 years post-snap? Can they follow through on that end-credits scene? You have Holland, but what else?
— Erik Davis (@ErikDavis) August 20, 2019
According to the sources previously mentioned, Kevin Fiege either will be out or is already out as a producer on future Spider-Man projects. This also means that the MCU will make no further reference or acknowledgment of Spider-Man and any of the characters in those films and reverse for Sony’s future Tom Holland Spidey flicks.
As of now, social media is in a frenzy under the guise that the deal has been done, though other sources like Variety are reporting that negotiations are underway.
The terms of the agreement between Disney/Marvel and Sony are alleged as follows:
- Disney wanted Sony to agree to a 50/50 split in co-financing future films. Sony turned this offer down.
- Sony wanted Disney to keep the original agreement between the two studios, the same agreement that was seen over the course of Homecoming and Far From Home. This deal allegedly stated that Disney would receive 5% of “first-dollar gross”*. Disney turned this offer down.
*NOTE: The term ‘First Dollar Gross’ means that a participant in a film would take a percentage of the revenue from the first day of release at the box office. For example- Leonardo DiCaprio managed to make more than double his pay in Inception by having a ‘First Dollar Gross’ clause in his deal with the film. Since Inception made major bank, he managed to get a lot more money in the long run.
Sony, who wishes to keep the original deal, would likely stand to make more money than Disney/Marvel, which Disney isn’t exactly too keen about, considering that much of the success from these movies is their doing. This is debatable, sure, but looking back at Andrew Garfield’s films, well, just make sure you are on the right side of the discussion with this one.
$Sony stock is plummeting after the news that the rocket scientists at Sony Pictures just killed their billion dollar #SpiderMan franchise. pic.twitter.com/P1HY33tCbw
— Jeremy Conrad (@ManaByte) August 20, 2019
Sony has a lot of leverage here, so it makes sense that they would try to renegotiate, especially after Far From Home became Sony’s highest-grossing film of all time making over $1.1 billion.
No new Spider-Man details were announced during SDCC, leaving speculation that these negotiations were getting in the way. We do know that Tom Holland and director Jon Watts will be back for at least two more Spider-Man movies, but whether or not things will be smoothed over by then has yet to be seen.
Speaking openly, let’s be real. This hype from the media and fans is just to put pressure on the situation. Sony and Marvel’s partnership is a winning formula that would be silly to break. If we had to guess, we’d expect that there will be an agreement soon and Spidey will happily co-exist in the MCU. Honestly, it would not surprise us if this information was leaked intentionally to put pressure on both parties for the purpose of closing this deal. But hey, what do we know, right?
tony stark realizing he wasted his life on spiderman for nothing pic.twitter.com/aH9ujffYwJ
— ziwe (@ziwe) August 20, 2019
