Sony Might Pull Spider-Man From The Marvel Cinematic Universe
Back in 2009, Disney bought Marvel Entertainment for about $4 billion. However, Marvel Entertainment didn’t own all the Marvel properties that got turned into movies. For example, the X-Men are Marvel properties, but 21st Century Fox owns the X-Men film franchise. Disney also owns Fox, but I’m sure you see my point here. Sony has owned the Spider-Man film franchise since 2002’s Spider-Man. Sony isn’t connected in any way with Disney, which makes this situation potentially very messy. Variety reports that Sony and Disney have been negotiating new financing terms for future Spider-Man movies, but negotiations have stalled. And here’s why the nerd tears started falling.
Disney has demanded that future Spider-Man films be financed 50/50 with Sony, and that Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige would remain a consulting producer. Variety says that Sony wants to stick to the current terms, which is that Marvel receives about 5% of first-dollar gross and all merchandising revenues. Neither side is reportedly budging. If they can’t make it work, Kevin Feige won’t produce future Spider-Man films, which means the current Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland) would be removed from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s almost as though Sony will be playing the part of Thanos and (SPOILER ALERT) will make only Peter Parker disappear.
Tom’s Spider-Man has appeared in Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home, both Sony. But he’s also appeared in Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and Avengers: Endgame. If Disney doesn’t budge, then Tony Stark is going to have to find another young teen boy to mentor. Yikes, are we sure removing Spider-Man isn’t a good move?
Sony would definitely want to keep a tight hold on Spider-Man. Spider-Man: Far From Home recently passed Skyfall as Sony’s biggest worldwide box office grosser. To date, it has brought in $1.1 billion worldwide since dropping in theaters last month.
Neither Disney nor Sony have had any comment about the matter.
Naturally, it’s more than just nerds who are talking about it. Ryan Reynolds addressed the situation on Twitter. Ryan plays Deadpool, and Deadpool was released by Fox. Disney owns Fox, so the chance of a Deadpool/Spider-Man mash up is looking slim.
You can. But you can only see it in my heart.
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 20, 2019
Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye in the MCU, also got involved. He hopped on Instagram to call on Sony to make sure they don’t snatch away Spider-Man.
I guess Jeremy couldn’t find a picture of Spider-Man. Which I guess is why he went with a picture of himself, giving you what you’d get if Hawkeye released that album instead of Jeremy. He also tagged the deceased Stan Lee. He also congratulated…who exactly? Wait, does Jeremy Renner even know what Spider-Man is? I wish someone would press him further, because I’m starting to think Jeremy thinks Spider-Man is what you turn into if you don’t pick up some of his approved outdoor bug spray on Amazon.
Pic: YouTube