Sharing is caring…until it costs money.
The Spider-man relationship with Marvel and Sony is like a bad custody hearing. Marvel wants to split custody, and Sony is an unreasonable monster who won’t even grant visitation after learning Spider-man is a genius child. Okay, maybe an odd take, but Sony taking full control of their Spider-man property is quite interesting.
The Deal & Downfall
Originally, the Sony-Marvel deal was made in 2015 with Sony putting up 100% of the production costs. The film was essentially a Sony film with a Marvel coat of paint. Disney was receiving 5% “first-dollar” gross and 5% ticket sales, along with merchandising rights.
With this deal, Sony would get most of the box-office profits.
Then, Marvel wanted to renegotiate.
Marvel wanted to move the profit split closer to 50/50 and receive more from the property, which I believe was the real strain that made Sony take back Spider-man. However, Sony did outline their reasons with a full statement on Twitter.
If you want to read the full statement without the three-part breaks in Twitter:
Much of today’s news about Spider-Man has mischaracterized recent discussions about Kevin Feige’s involvement in the franchise. We are disappointed, but respect Disney’s decision not to have him continue as a lead producer of our next live action Spider-Man film. We hope this might change in the future, but understand that the many new responsibilities that Disney has given him—including all their newly added Marvel properties—do not allow time for him to work on IP they do not own. Kevin is terrific and we are grateful for his help and guidance and appreciate the path he has helped put us on, which we will continue.
It is entirely possible that an agreement between Marvel and Sony can be made later to keep Spider-man in the MCU, but sadly this looks like Sony won’t be sharing anytime soon.
What’s Next?
Well, for Sony, they have a lot of options. They can continue the story created in “Far from Home” without other MCU characters, they can add Spider-man in a Vemon movie, and they can reboot Spider-man for the 100th time like they always seem to enjoy. Outside of bringing back Tobey Maguire, I don’t know if any of these options are great.
Putting Spider-man in a Venom movie could be a fun, comic book style adventure, but having Spider-man share the screen with Venom might be a tough task. Venom would have to be reverted to Bad Guy status at a time where his anti-hero status is just taking shape. That being said, it is there best move.
Any other decision would be difficult to entice fans to come and see it, especially at the billion-dollar levels Spider-man had just reached. Spider-man is a fan favorite regardless of MCU branding, but Spider-man definitely grew faster and was arguably more beloved under Marvel’s direction.
Another point to be made is the lack of information on returning cast and director. Jon Watts, director of the last two Spider-man films, is not confirmed to return for the next Spider-man movie. Only Tom Holland is confirmed to return, but even that might be suspect if they don’t start production soon.
The 3rd Spider-man film is in the works with early writing work, but a lot can happen from now until pre-production and production rolls around. I can’t foresee what will happen next for the Spider-man franchise, but I hope Sony learned from their time working with Kevin Feige and Marvel on how to create compelling, character-driven narratives that keeps Spider-man’s universe fresh and full of life.
Website Update:
I recently noticed my website was down due to some email issues. I have since fixed it and it should be working well. I will also need to fix my Twitter account a bit as well, so please leave comments below for any questions.
-J.J.
