Would the Spider-Man movies be better if they were done by Marvel?

[Vidocq]

I haven't seen Amazing Spider-Man yet but the reviews from the critics I trust tell me is good-ish. Like Kinda good with terrible parts that lower the quality of the whole film but it never crosses the line to become bad. I don't know, I'm watching it next tuesday.

Now Im not a Spider-Man fan, never have been. Liked Spectacular (the theme song roped me in) and that's about it, and I never really liked the Sam Raimi movies and I liked Amazing just fine, just looking them as Movies and not as adaptations. But just watching the Marvel films with much lesser known and much less marketable (*Cough* Captain America *cough*) characters tells me that they could probably muster a much better movie than what Sony has done so far.

And this is not even about Spider-Man being on the Avengers, honestly he doesn't seem like he would get to do much and would probably take away too much screen time from the other Avengers. It's more to the fact that the worst received (so far) Spider-Man movies have been 3 and Amazing 2 (which again, I haven't seen so maybe I disagree with this wholeheartly) and they both reportedly had a ton of interference from Sony. Now the Marvel films are made of studio interference, every storyline follows a storyarc that leads to The Avengers. But they somehow make that work.

So what you think (specially those of you that actually have watched the Amazing Spider-Man 2), would Marvel do a better job?

[Arfguy]

Maybe...I think the prospect of him being in the Avengers would be way too tempting for Marvel Studios to make it too much of a mess. Spider-Man in the same movie as Iron Man and the Hulk? WOW! That would be so cool. I also think that Marvel Studios would have a built in plan if their (arguably) highest profile character back.

Personally, I think they could make it better than Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man. Haven't seen ASM2 yet, but Spider-Man 2 is still one of my top superhero movies of all time.

[Rogue Star]

I don't know if the movies would be better. I think Spider-Man only suffers now from being at Sony because he can't be tied into the MCU. He has suffered in the past because of what happened during the Spider-Man 3 and the Amazing Spider-man turnover but like I said, that's all in the past. Spider-Man being at Sony frees up Marvel Studios' to bring us movies that we probably wouldn't otherwise get, like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Dr. Strange. The big problem to me is only that Sony and Marvel Studios can't seem to work together.

[darthjoker]

I lost interest in spider man movies when they changed the costume of spider man in Amazing.

[Goggindowner]

Better? Well, who's to really say? IMO, the answer is yes. Marvel, so far, has done a very good (and surprisingly consistent) job of knowing what parts of their characters to highlight to make them marketable, and then crafted stories that play to those angels. Sure, some have been barely successful or near misses (Incredible Hulk, Captain America, Thor 2), but those are the exceptions and not the norm. With their most popular non-mutant character, I have to believe that whatever Marvel came up with would be pretty special.

[marshal99]

Would be hard to top that first 2 Sam Raimi's spider-man movies , they were quite special and Raimi would have been precisely the type of director that Marvel studio would have hired had the rights still been at marvel and not sony in the first place.

[kalorama]

Not being blessed with a crystal ball or the gift of precognition, I have no way of knowing what marvel might do. But based on what they've actually done, I have no particular reason to think so.

For the most part, I think the Spider-Man movies have been good. Not great, but the best (SM II) was quite good. Only one of them was really bad (SM III). On the other side, most of the Marvel movies have been good. The best have been very good, the worst of them have been just okay. The only one that even approached being anywhere in the general vicinity of great to me was Winter Soldier. So . . . who the hell knows?

Issues of quality aside, I like the idea of Spider-Man existing in his own separate sphere. Same with the X-Men. The only one of the extant properties that I think would really integrate well with the MCU is FF.

[Baron Samedi]

Considering how poor were Thor 2 and Iron man 3 i tend to think that spidey is just as fine with Sony.

[harpier]

I don't know if the movies would be better. I think Spider-Man only suffers now from being at Sony because he can't be tied into the MCU. He has suffered in the past because of what happened during the Spider-Man 3 and the Amazing Spider-man turnover but like I said, that's all in the past. Spider-Man being at Sony frees up Marvel Studios' to bring us movies that we probably wouldn't otherwise get, like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Dr. Strange. The big problem to me is only that Sony and Marvel Studios can't seem to work together.

This! Absolutely this.

Don't forget that prior to 2008's Iron Man, which—thanks to two virtuoso contributions from star Robert Downey, Jr. and director Jon Favreau—set the tone for most of the subsequent Avengers-line movies, Sony's Spider-Man and 20th Century Fox's X-Men movies were the cream of the superhero crop from the Marvel properties, Blade II excluded. Now, neither of these series hold up very well for me, and both had clunkers for third installments, but they were significantly better than Hulk, Daredevil, Elektra, either Fantastic Four movie, The Punisher, or (God knows!) Ghost Rider.

And Sony's rebooted Amazing Spider-Man exceeds several of Marvel's recent offerings, including the first Captain America, Thor: The Dark World, both Iron Man sequels, and The Incredible Hulk, most of which were still very good movies. (I leave you out, Iron Man 2...and maybe 3 as well.) I also think it makes relevant and interesting changes to the characters. (See NPR critic and blogger Linda Holmes' fine article on the shift from "geek" to "nerd" in the reboot: here.) I've yet to see Amazing Spider-Man 2, but my understanding is that it shows several of the same strengths and weaknesses that most of these superhero sequels do: a stronger grasp of character and a ballooning cast of villains.

But the finest point @Rogue Star mentions: because the rights to several high-profile Marvel characters are currently held by other studios, they are pressured to mine their second- and third-tier titles for material, so we get to look forward to movies like James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy and Edgar Wright's Ant-Man.

[LASERlips]

I don't know if the movies would be better. I think Spider-Man only suffers now from being at Sony because he can't be tied into the MCU. He has suffered in the past because of what happened during the Spider-Man 3 and the Amazing Spider-man turnover but like I said, that's all in the past. Spider-Man being at Sony frees up Marvel Studios' to bring us movies that we probably wouldn't otherwise get, like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Dr. Strange. The big problem to me is only that Sony and Marvel Studios can't seem to work together.

I think Spider-Man suffers at Sony because they decide to rush things in order to hold on to that movie license. Like, OH NO WE NEED A MOVIE let's do another origin story because obviously everyone forgot how Spider-Man got started. Like the Fox producers, they can't seem to get the costumes right a lot of the time, and they're too bold as far as making serious changes to storylines and characters (not every villain needs a personal connection to Peter Parker, Raimi). I'd say Raimi, like Marvel, wasn't afraid to embrace the comic-book-ness of the character, but then again he made all sorts of changes while delivering a ton of slapstick and stinky cheese.

Edit: I'm not saying every adaptation should be 100% faithful, but I think the source material should be respected a little more than it's been. It's kind of sad (and kind of cool I guess) when the best adaptation of Spider-Man of all time anywhere is a cartoon that was cancelled after just two seasons, instead of one of the many movies with so much talent and effort and budget behind them.

By showing what they could do with relatively low-tier characters, I think Marvel's hands would be the right hands for Spider-Man. I do agree that Marvel not having these rights opens doors to awesome smaller heroes like Ant-Man and Dr. Strange, and that is pretty sick.

[Kurosawa]

Maybe, from Marvel's track record one would assume so. But I wonder if Marvel had the rights to Spidey and Wolverine, would characters like Iron Man and Thor ever even seen the light of day? So to me this is a blessing in disguise, and since I really hate Wolverine, I like the MCU better without the X-Men.

[Hypestyle]

"Better"? who knows. There would be a better opportunity to incorporate him into Avengers, for sure.

[YoungThanos]

Considering how poor were Thor 2 and Iron man 3 i tend to think that spidey is just as fine with Sony.

IM3 and Thor2 where golden globe winners compared to GR 1 & 2, SM3, and as stupid as the Lizards plot was in ASM I think Dark World deserves more respect. I think Sony is slowly killing Spidey's name and apparently the GA has caught wind of it as well. So yes a reboot of Spider-man in the MCU would be epic and more successful than anything Sony's ever seen.

[YoungThanos]

Maybe, from Marvel's track record one would assume so. But I wonder if Marvel had the rights to Spidey and Wolverine, would characters like Iron Man and Thor ever even seen the light of day? So to me this is a blessing in disguise, and since I really hate Wolverine, I like the MCU better without the X-Men.

Perhaps it's because of Wolverine at Fox Deadpool or Silver Surfer films don't see the light of day....And Sony's been talking about a Venom spinoff since 2007..... People need some real sense of perspective in here.

Marvel studios has done more in 6 years than both Sony and Fox has done in 14. People need to stop projecting these false what if's on Marvel. Last time I checked those other studios are trying desperately to follow their lead.

[Rogue Star]

I think Spider-Man suffers at Sony because they decide to rush things in order to hold on to that movie license. Like, OH NO WE NEED A MOVIE let's do another origin story because obviously everyone forgot how Spider-Man got started. Like the Fox producers, they can't seem to get the costumes right a lot of the time, and they're too bold as far as making serious changes to storylines and characters (not every villain needs a personal connection to Peter Parker, Raimi). I'd say Raimi, like Marvel, wasn't afraid to embrace the comic-book-ness of the character, but then again he made all sorts of changes while delivering a ton of slapstick and stinky cheese.

That's actually part of what I was referring to when I said this:

I don't know if the movies would be better. I think Spider-Man only suffers now from being at Sony because he can't be tied into the MCU. He has suffered in the past because of what happened during the Spider-Man 3 and the Amazing Spider-man turnover but like I said, that's all in the past. Spider-Man being at Sony frees up Marvel Studios' to bring us movies that we probably wouldn't otherwise get, like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, and Dr. Strange. The big problem to me is only that Sony and Marvel Studios can't seem to work together.

They didn't have to rush to reboot the series just so that they could hold on to the license because Sam Raimi could have been allowed time to make Spider-Man 3 and 4 the way he wanted. We would have gotten good movies and Sony would have held on to the license if they had given Raimi the time and space that he honestly earned. But noooo, trend riding Sony had already started planning a reboot and put the squeeze on Raimi until he finally quit - he was unwilling to further sacrifice the quality of his work to satisfy Sony's greed.

http://spinoff.comicbookresources.co...-didnt-happen/

“It really was the most amicable and undramatic of breakups: It was simply that we had a deadline and I couldn’t get the story to work on a level that I wanted it to work,” he said of his split with Sony Pictures. “I was very unhappy with Spider-Man 3, and I wanted to make Spider-Man 4 to end on a very high note, the best Spider-Man of them all. But I couldn’t get the script together in time, due to my own failings, and I said to Sony, ‘I don’t want to make a movie that is less than great, so I think we shouldn’t make this picture. Go ahead with your reboot, which you’ve been planning anyway.’”

I'm glad he doesn't sound bitter about his experience but I would not be surprised if he's secretly hoping that The Amazing Spider-Man series fails.

Raimi still hasn’t seen Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man or Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, but he did say he has nothing but love for both projects. In fact, he had originally looked at Anne Hathaway to play Felicia Hardy, character Webb is rumored to be incorporating into The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and an actress that Nolan used in The Dark Knight Rises.

“I’m not surprised [Hathaway did great in TDKR], because I loved what she was doing with the auditions for Spider-Man 4,” Raimi said.

One movie he has seen is Joss Whedon’s The Avengers, and he “loved it.” It turns out that he has a bit of a history with Joss Whedon, who Raimi finds an “extraordinarily talented filmmaker.”

I might be reading too much into Raimi's comments but I get the impression that he's indirectly making Sony look like the studio that has been losing out because of their decisions and in contrast praising others for what they have accomplished.