Are You Fine With Sony Keeping The Spider-Man Rights?

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I really do hope we someday get an objective answer to this question, because it would reveal a lot about how Marvel as a whole sees Spider-Man.

Marvel has dropped the ball with Spider-Man in every medium in the last few years, but the most common denominator was always Quesada and a handful of the same people (Brevoort, Waid, etc). The two Disney Spider-Man cartoons and the comics since BND don't necessarily prove that Marvel as a whole doesn't understand Spider-Man, just Quesada.

So someone like Kevin Feige getting full control over Spider-Man would be interesting, because that's a guy that clearly has a good record with Marvel characters and that doesn't answer to Quesada or anyone else that works in the comics and television division at Marvel. So if nothing else, it would be interesting.

[Hypestyle]

I'd prefer if Disney were to get the rights back, and consolidate the development of TV and film projects.

The development of supporting characters and villains into their own "quasi-Spider-MCU-verse" is creatively questionable, depending on how "divorced" the individual story is from the (traditional) relationship with Spider-Man. Obviously, we already have seen Venom developed completely without a connection to Peter.

You have the remaining non-Marvel film producers connected to the franchise like Avi Arad (he's still there, folks, yes!) (and, well, 'iconic story' thirsty fans) who want to fast track pretty much any and everything into a film, including the now "legendary" Sinister Six project-- but hell, we already have seen that the rated R version of Suicide Squad has had some commercial limits, despite how fun (IMO) they both were. Can you imagine a film like Sinister Six where the villains are placed in jail by, "Umm, you know, that one guy..." but they never name Spider-Man since MCU Peter officially hasn't met them yet. Punisher is controlled by Disney now so he's off limits. Who's left as a hero in the "Sony-Spider-Verse"? Hobie Brown (Prowler 1)? Rocket Racer? Frog Man? Jessica Drew? All folks who have officially not even been seen yet on screen.

Can you make a Black Cat fun heist film without Spider-Man? Of course. But trying to create it in such a way that "maybe" there is a crossover next time is going to be... awkward.. high school senior Peter has no business, for example, flirting with a possibly pushing-30-year old Felecia. Flat out.

A Kraven film where he is some kind of niche assassin (presumably hunting, uh, someone bad?) with a fetish for using non-guns? Hey, go for it. But trying to fast track "The Last Hunt", with Kraven waxing philosophically about having spent "many years" in combat with Spider-Man, when the characters haven't even met on screen yet? Come on, seriously.

We'll see how it goes. Sony/Columbia fronting the money for these projects is a relief for Disney, but the quality control just isn't there for any project that does not directly involve Spider-Man himself.

[John Venus]

Ended up choosing the third option.

On one hand, I love the MCU and want Spider-Man to be a part of it but do we really want Disney to have more IP's and not having any kind of competition and becoming a monopoly?

After looking at these options, I think Sony should have kept the animation rights since they obviously rule at that arena (ITSV, Spectacular Spider-Man) and Disney/Marvel keeps the live action rights.

I think Holland is the best live action Spider-Man thus far but the high tech suits, the Stark fanboyism, the cross overs at the expense of developing supporting characters and villains who ties more to IM rather than Spider-Man himself does get grating. Plus there is also how fragile the deal is as we learned in 2019. I get some of it was necessary because there were two other Spider-Man franchises, I get that, but it doesn't make for good standalone Spider-Man movies.

Overall, I think the Ant-Man movies capture the everyman/underdog aspect which I wanted to see from Spider-Man.

[Batman Begins 2005]

They made Spectacular Spider-Man and Into the Spider-Verse. Sure, they've also made their fair share of crap, but I much prefer they had them than Marvel at this point.

The two best Spider-Man adaptations ever. Love both.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It’s a moot point as Disney will eventually gobble up Sony just like it has Fox, Lucas Film, and Marvel itself. Disney is the Galactus of film companies. I give it 3 years lol.

It will be very hard for Disney to buy Sony Pictures given that outside of the Spider-Man movie rights there's not much incentive to buy it, and given that any such merger needs federal approval that's not gonna be likely so long as Biden and his administration in charge. Remember that at heart Disney is a Theme Park and Resort company, and a merchandise/IP license company. The stuff dealing with film production is a fairly small part of their businesses, and they have yet to recoup the costs from the Fox purchase.

Disney didn't buy Fox just to get access to Doctor Doom. I am sure that did have part to do it, but it would never have been just for that. Ultimately they bought Fox because it came with Alien, and Titanic, and Avatar, The Simpsons as well as sports companies, and all the merchandise associated with the Cameron and Simpsons stuff, and other stuff associated with Murdoch's business (and by the way thanks to the purchase, Murdoch is now on Disney's board of directors, so yeah the #1 source of evil for the last 40 years came out like gangbusters).

Whereas aside from Spider-Man, Sony has Jumanji, and also films like Little Women, The Post which are pretty good films Sony but not exactly franchise material. They have James Bond (which is a deal where they distribute while the IP is owned by the Broccoli family who have governed the films since the first one, they don't own it outright) but they recently entered a deal with Amazon Prime to put Bond there.

And in any case, Disney has exclusives on Spider-Man merchandise and that's the single most important source of income for Spider-Man as an IP, not the movies, games, and certainly not the comics.

Doesn’t even have to be disney anyone who buys Sony the rights go back to marvel

That doesn't actually seem to be true.

https://comicyears.com/pop-culture/i...n-and-the-mcu/

The truth is nobody knows the exact wording of the Sony-Disney deal. It's an urban legend that the rights revert back to Marvel if a third party buys Sony. It might be true but we simply do not know for a fact or a surety. If that was the case, all Disney would have to do was invite the Apple CEO or whoever to a golf game and make some cryptic suggestions as well as invite them to secret shareholder gathering for special access and funds and so on, and Sony gets secretly mergered sometime tomorrow.

On the other hand, here's the rub, the value of buying Sony Pictures without Spider-Man is significantly lower than if it did. So paradoxically this theory might actually be to Sony's benefit in avoiding a third party corporate takeover.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I really do hope we someday get an objective answer to this question, because it would reveal a lot about how Marvel as a whole sees Spider-Man.

Marvel has dropped the ball with Spider-Man in every medium in the last few years, but the most common denominator was always Quesada and a handful of the same people (Brevoort, Waid, etc). The two Disney Spider-Man cartoons and the comics since BND don't necessarily prove that Marvel as a whole doesn't understand Spider-Man, just Quesada.

So someone like Kevin Feige getting full control over Spider-Man would be interesting, because that's a guy that clearly has a good record with Marvel characters and that doesn't answer to Quesada or anyone else that works in the comics and television division at Marvel. So if nothing else, it would be interesting.

I was hoping that Feige would muscle in and put his stamp on the comics but so far he's been content to not interfere.

Perhaps because a movie guy having a say on comics potentially leads Marvel staff to wonder when they get salaries on relative par with the movie division as well as Union benefits which they have access to.

[Castle]

So Spiderman Homecoming was on TV sometimes recently, Was not seriously watching it but was catching some glimpse of it and there was a street scene, that caught my eyes that I did stop and look at and in the next few minutes I got depressed looking at the movie's quality.

the entire movie look very dour, really generic almost hallmark style and lacking immensely with cinematography , It is very cooperate made even more than I did use to think of with an MCU film and I just got sad about the whole movie, not one of those who likes to get mad or enraged or feel they need to proudly boast about something because ..oh we know so much about cinema movie making...I was just sad looking at the film, because it made me miss greatly Sam Raimi more stylish visual directing, it is very hard to take MCU Spiderman films seriously because the Raimi movies were just so well done from a film maker's hand and that was thanks to Sony.

Spiderman is the most important marvel character, he does not need the Disney monopoly style of movies. it hurts, more than it helps.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So Spiderman Homecoming was on TV sometimes recently, Was not seriously watching it but was catching some glimpse of it and there was a street scene, that caught my eyes that I did stop and look at and in the next few minutes I got depressed looking at the movie's quality.

the entire movie look very dour, really generic almost hallmark style and lacking immensely with cinematography , It is very cooperate made even more than I did use to think of with an MCU film and I just got sad about the whole movie, not one of those who likes to get mad or enraged or feel they need to proudly boast about something because ..oh we know so much about cinema movie making...I was just sad looking at the film, because it made me miss greatly Sam Raimi more stylish visual directing, it is very hard to take MCU Spiderman films seriously because the Raimi movies were just so well done from a film maker's hand and that was thanks to Sony.

Spiderman is the most important marvel character, he does not need the Disney monopoly style of movies. it hurts, more than it helps.

Yeah, the MCU Spider-Man movies are visually quite dry, especially compared to the Raimi movies but also to some extent the Marc Webb movies**. I know there's this ongoing conversation about the lighting and color-grading in the MCU being too homogenous and not very good on a technical level (which to be honest I noticed both in LOKI and in Shang-Chi) but the visual design of Homecoming and FFH definitely felt dry and certainly some of the decisions strike me even now as quite dubious. Like staging the vulture's two aerial fights with Spider-Man at night when we can barely see is especially weak in my view.


** The Marc Webb movies aren't visually dynamic necessarily but at the very least the decision to make Spider-Man look partly like a quirky indie movie (since that's how Webb started) makes some amount of sense and is at the very least a cohesive and consistent design. It's not as well thought out and instinctive like Sam Raimi's films of course but it does make more sense than the MCU movies.

[DrewHLMW]

I like homecoming and far from home and i'm sure I'll like no way home but i want a movie with the real Mary Jane again, so if sony will give me that then sony can keep the rights.

[Dzika_Sowa]

Can Sony make a Spider-Man TV series, or does the deal only allow them to produce movies?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Can Sony make a Spider-Man TV series, or does the deal only allow them to produce movies?

As long as it's more than 40mns long per episode.

A TV production with the budget and resources you need for Spider-Man would be quite expensive and there'd be an issue in the sense that the budget would never be feature-length level but would have to live up to feature-length.

I think the best thing is to adapt stuff like Superior Foes of Spider-Man which is mostly people in suits talking and doing bizarre crazy plots. That might work.

[John Venus]

Or the Enforcers. lol

[InfamousBG]

I just want to see Spidey fight Venom (Tom Hardy).

[Guy1]

As long as it's more than 40mns long per episode.

A TV production with the budget and resources you need for Spider-Man would be quite expensive and there'd be an issue in the sense that the budget would never be feature-length level but would have to live up to feature-length.

[Mistah K88]

When it comes to Sony’s handling of Spider-Man in adaptations, they may have had some lower lows, but they have had much higher highs (like best interpretation outside of comics good).