It’s the comic book movie fanboy dream that seemed almost impossible. Could Spider-Man someday team up on screen with Marvel superheroes like Captain America and Iron Man, just like he often does in Marvel Comics?
Logistically and financially, that seemed unlikely to ever happen. Sony Pictures owns the movie rights to Spider-Man, while Marvel Studios had dibs on the various Avengers. Why would Sony give up their $4 billion blockbuster franchise in any way? But for Marvel, the cool factor of continuing to make its movies like the comic books would be phenomenal.
But this really is happening. In the old Marvel Comics, creator Stan Lee often referred to fans as true believers. Those who always hoped to see Spider-Man partner with The Avengers in the movies are now being rewarded. Late Tuesday night, The Wall Street Journal broke news that Sony and Marvel had indeed negotiated an agreement to share the movie rights to the Spider-Man character. This confirmed rumors — implausible as they may have seemed — that had circulated throughout Hollywood for months.
When Sony Pictures was hacked last December, leaking several interoffice documents and emails, it was revealed that Sony and Marvel had indeed discussed an agreement involving the Spider-Man property — something along the lines of a 60 percent/40 percent arrangement. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a box office and critical disappointment. Fanboys and geeks had no love for the film either. Sony seemed more interested in creating a larger, multi-character universe, on par with what Marvel had created with the Avengers properties than just telling a good Spider-Man story.
Yet that was a plan that Marvel rolled out over at least five years, beginning with 2008’s Iron Man. Individual characters and storylines were established with their own films before combing their forces in 2012’s blockbuster The Avengers. Spider-Man was a single superhero with a great rogues gallery of villains, but was there anything with which to create a spinoff franchise? Sony eyed a movie featuring several of Spider-Man’s arch-enemies, sort of an Avengers with bad guys, called The Sinister Six.
The idea of basing a movie around villains seemed intriguing. But development on that stalled as Sony tried to figure out what exactly to do with the Spider-Man franchise, and the studio seemingly had no consensus on which direction to pursue, throwing ideas against the wall — such as a movie about the early years of Peter Parker’s Aunt May that might appeal to a female audience. Sony denied that rumor, but could do little to dispel perception that it was lost when it came to Spider-Man.
Enter Marvel, who saw an opportunity to take advantage of Sony’s weakened position and try to get its hands on Marvel Comics’ most popular character. It’s possible that Sony had little interest in such a partnership until the hack made discussions public, and the uproar from fans wanting to see Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was difficult to ignore. We’ll likely never know if that was actually the case, but something changed Sony’s mind on this, whether it was Marvel being persuasive or Sony truly having no idea where to go with Spider-Man.
(Several insiders speculate that moving producer Avi Arad, who resigned from Marvel in 2006 and is perceived as putting the Spider-Man franchise in this position, out of the way was key to getting this deal done. It’s worth noting that Arad’s name is nowhere to be seen in the official press release announcing the Sony-Marvel deal.)
So purely from a movie standpoint, what does this mean? Spider-Man will soon make an appearance in a Marvel Studios film, believed to be 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Presumably, the character will be seen in a cameo, rather than a prominent role in the film. However, shoehorning him into a film already being produced might be difficult. That could push Spider-Man’s Marvel debut back to 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, in which the character would likely play a larger part.
Sony will release a new standalone Spider-Man movie in 2017 with Marvel taking a role in the production. However, Sony will still finance, distribute and have final creative control (a potential conflict that could be worth monitoring) over the film. Additionally, Marvel cinematic characters may appear in future Spider-Man movies.
The real loser in this new partnership appears to be Andrew Garfield, who’s portrayed the superhero and his alter-ego Peter Parker in the past two Spider-Man films. The Wrap reports that Garfield will not be playing the role again and director Marc Webb, who helmed Garfield’s Spidey movies, surely won’t be back either. So we’ll be getting a new Spider-Man on screen, which should lead to all sorts of excitement and speculation over the next few months. It will also be intriguing to see how Marvel will depict the character’s iconic costume, something I think Webb’s films did very well.
To make room for Spider-Man, Marvel also announced that several release dates for upcoming films have been moved. Thor: Ragnarok gets pushed from a July 28, 2017 release to Nov. 3 that same year. Black Panther jumps from Nov. 3 to a July 6, 2018 debut. Captain Marvel moves from that July 6 release to Nov. 2, 2018. And The Inhumans bolts from that Nov. 2 spot to a July 12, 2019 release date.
Spider-Man hasn’t affected the release of the next Avengers films, however. (Well, other than likely being part of the lineup now.) The Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 remains at May 2, 2018, with its follow-up, The Avengers: Infinity War Part 2, rolling out a year later on May 3, 2019.
