Much as Marvel would like to have
all its eggs in one basket, when it comes to film rights to all of their
characters they do not have them in their entirety. Sony is famously known for
keeping its movie rights to “Spider-Man” to their chest, and it was only a
landmark sharing deal with Disney-Marvel Studios that allowed the Friendly
Neighborhood hero to appear in team-ups and new solo pictures as portrayed by
Tom Holland. Not long after “Spider-Man: Far from Home” was released however,
this fragile rights deal may have just been ended between Disney-Marvel and
Sony-Columbia Pictures.
The Hollywood Reporter has it that Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures
have decided to pull cooperation on the production of more solo films featuring
top-line Marvel Comics hero Spider-Man. The breakdown of the unique cooperative
deal first broached in 2014 was due to Marvel Studios’ parent company Disney
looking to renegotiate the deal for a larger share of the box-office gross,
while Sony was adamant that the existing terms were fine as is. This rights-sharing
scheme gave Marvel Studios leave to use the wall-crawler in crossovers with the
MCU franchise, while they, particularly studio head Kevin Feige, would produce
new solo “Spider-Man” films for Sony.
The landmark arrangement gave all
merchandising revenue for “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Far from Home” to Disney-Marvel
Studios while receiving only 5% of the box office earnings. Following the
runaway success of “Far from Home,” Disney had tried to increase the share, but
Sony held firm and as of Tuesday, August 21, word was out that there will be no
further co-production between Sony and Marvel Studios’ Feige for more “Spider-Man”
films. From a storytelling viewpoint, that means Peter Parker/Spidey is no
longer allowed to appear in the MCU franchise, which could spell the end of
this iteration of the character as played by Tom Holland.
To say this outcome is
problematic is too generous. The “Holland era” of Spider-Man in film has been
considered the high-point of Sony’s handling of the character following the “start
strong but flounder eventually” initial trilogy with Tobey Maguire and the “successfully
mediocre” twofer with Andrew Garfield. Sony Pictures boss Tom Rothman gave a
diplomatic explanation of Kevin Feige’s exit being attributed to him busying
with integrating the “X-Men” franchise into the MCU following the acquisition
of rights-holder 20th Century Fox. Analysts believe Sony is
confident following the success of spinoffs “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”
and “Venom” that they could once again produce good Spider-fare without help
from Marvel Studios.
But the potential loss of this latest
version of movie-Spidey could potentially hurt both, with Disney-Marvel being
unable to continue its MCU cliffhanger in “Far from Home” and Sony-Columbia
having to prove that their “Venom” and “Spider-Verse” productions were no
fluke. Interestingly, there was no “Spider-Man” film in the MCU Phase 4 movie
release schedule, which covers only two years.
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