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

[Amadeus Arkham]

Are You Fine With Sony keeping the Spider-Man film rights or do you think it’s better they lose the rights and Marvel have the full rights? On one hand, if Marvel had the Spider-Man rights you wouldn’t be getting useless spin-off movies like Morbius and Kraven. On the other hand, you wouldn’t be getting ITSV and it’s sequels. So there’s definitely upsides and downsides to consider in either scenario.

[NC_Yankee]

Are You Fine With Sony keeping the Spider-Man film rights or do you think it’s better they lose the rights and Marvel have the full rights? On one hand, if Marvel had the Spider-Man rights you wouldn’t be getting useless spin-off movies like Morbius and Kraven. On the other hand, you wouldn’t be getting ITSV and it’s sequels. So there’s definitely upsides and downsides to consider in either scenario.

I have no problem either way. I do suspect that one day Disney will buy the filmed part of Sony so they can get back the Spider properties as well as select film and TV properties that fit into the Disney profile ( such as Ghostbusters) and sell the rest off ( to avoid anti trust issues).

[SpiderClops]

I'm fine with either really.

[Kevinroc]

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.

[PizzaTime2099]

I'm pretty indifferent about it. It's the creatives that make the movie good regardless of what studio they work for.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

That's a hard one.

In hindsight, I actually think the Sony/Marvel deal was the worst of the three options. Spider-Man staying at Sony completely or returning to Marvel completely would have both been better alternatives than what we actually got. Under the restrictions that came with the deal, MCU Spider-Man was turned into almost the opposite of who Spider-Man is. I'm not going to get into that here because there is already tons of discussion on it.

It's highly unlikely that the flaws in MCU Spider-Man would have been there had Feige had full creative control. Feige has yet to drop the ball with other Marvel heroes the way he did with Spider-Man, and it's clear when you hear him talk about Spidey that the man "gets" him. Likewise, Sony has never dropped the ball with Spider-Man's characterization this much back when they were working solo. Not even in recent history (see ITSV). So MCU Spider-Man must have turned out the way he did due to restrictions on both Sony and Marvel.

I don't see this going away. Sony and Disney arguably both have an incentive to heavily tie this Spider-Man to elements in the MCU like Iron Man. In Sony's case it makes sense because they have to gain the public's trust that they can make good Spider-Man films, in Disney's case it makes sense in case Sony ever tries to pull Holland Spidey out of the MCU. It's a power play on both sides, in other words.

The result is that Spider-Man suffers creatively. And anything is better than that. Heck, Sony flunking Spider-Man and having to return the rights because they can no longer make money off of him would have been better. Spider-Man is big enough to survive a Batman & Robin at this point. Had that happened with TASM3, Spidey could have returned to Marvel around the same time as the X-Men and the FF, and Marvel could have taken their time on him the way they're now taking their time on the latter.

As for which I would choose now, I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I'm leaning towards Sony due to them not having to be burdened with continuity as much as Marvel. As What If? Zombies proved, Marvel having full creative control over Spidey is no longer enough to "fix" this version, because they still have to adhere to the characterization that was established by Watts and the Russos. Whereas Sony can always reboot again.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

I prefer variety over homogeneity. Competition over Monopoly.

Which is to say that the more different people or different studios in this case have access to doing different takes and versions, the better it is for me as a consumer.

So on that principle I am not only fine with Sony keeping the Spider-Man rights, I actively favor it and would prefer that MCU never get full control over Spider-Man ever.

This doesn't mean that Sony Pictures is automatically the best or that all their Spider-Man movies are great, for me that's irrelevant. It's possible that a future or later Sony Spider-Man or Spider-Man spinoff would be bad and/or unlikable -- they could do a full-throated Slott Spider-Man adaptation and so on -- and I'd still want them to keep the Spider-Man rights until they are cold and dead.

The fact is that they made Into the Spider-Verse, that movie wouldn't have been possible, or conceivable, if MCU had control over the character. And that justifies Disney-Marvel from never having full control.

Ideally, Spider-Man should be in the public domain...and maybe eventually US Congress should think about nationalizing Disney and making all its IP open source.

That's a hard one.

In hindsight, I actually think the Sony/Marvel deal was the worst of the three options. Spider-Man staying at Sony completely or returning to Marvel completely would have both been better alternatives than what we actually got. Under the restrictions that came with the deal, MCU Spider-Man was turned into almost the opposite of who Spider-Man is. I'm not going to get into that here because there is already tons of discussion on it.

I agree that the MCU Spider-Man is a compromise that doesn't make a case either way for who should govern the character. I am not sure if Spider-Man fully in the MCU under Feige would be better or more agreeable or different from what we got though.

The Russos were quite insistent on teenage Spider-Man calling him "Peter Pan" even, i.e. who never grows up.

[Blanks]

My idealized fix would be let Disney have Tom-Spider-man, and Sony develop Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man more as he was my preferred Peter Parker and movie universe. But that’s just me, personally. I think Garfield’s Peter would work great alongside Sam Jackson’s Nick Fury.

[Kaitou D. Kid]

I agree that the MCU Spider-Man is a compromise that doesn't make a case either way for who should govern the character. I am not sure if Spider-Man fully in the MCU under Feige would be better or more agreeable or different from what we got though.

The Russos were quite insistent on teenage Spider-Man calling him "Peter Pan" even, i.e. who never grows up.

Well we know Feige wants to grow Peter Parker up because he said he wants to do it like Harry Potter where one solo film is one year of his life. And so far that's what we've gotten. Peter is a sophomore in Homecoming, a junior in FFH, and a senior in this upcoming one. He's also apparently a big fan of JMS Spider-Man, which you don't usually hear the Peter Pan-advocates praise like that.

The Russos indeed don't get Spider-Man, but I think Jon Watts does. If we look at what Watts has said about Homecoming, that ending was indeed supposed to be about Peter taking Vulture's words to heart and breaking away from Stark because he came to see him as disconnected from "the ground" (Feige has likewise said similar things about Homecoming's ending back when he was doing interviews in 2017). That's also what lines of dialogue like "I don't trust that Mr. Stark" (from Aunt May) and "a little rebellion is good for team spirit" (Liz) originally foreshadowed. Watts also compared Spider-Man not joining the Avengers in Homecoming to him not joining the FF in ASM #1, claiming the inspiration came from there. Overall, he seemed self-aware to me about the problem with Iron Man being Peter's mentor, until Infinity War and Endgame made it impossible for Far From Home to divorce Peter from Stark.

The unfortunate thing is that the shareholders at Sony and Disney have more pull than Feige, and the Russos have more creative pull than Watts who was a newcomer and working on a "less important" film than Civil War/Infinity War/Endgame. So both Feige and Watts had to work around those people and be reactionary to what they set up/wanted to do half the time. That's my general reading of what went down. I think if Feige and Watts had it their way completely, MCU Spider-Man would have been a lot better.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Well we know Feige wants to grow Peter Parker up because he said he wants to do it like Harry Potter where one solo film is one year of his life. And so far that's what we've gotten. Peter is a sophomore in Homecoming, a junior in FFH, and a senior in this upcoming one. He's also apparently a big fan of JMS Spider-Man, which you don't usually hear the Peter Pan-advocates praise like that.

The Russos indeed don't get Spider-Man, but I think Jon Watts does. If we look at what Watts has said about Homecoming, that ending was indeed supposed to be about Peter taking Vulture's words to heart and breaking away from Stark because he came to see him as disconnected from "the ground" (Feige has likewise said similar things about Homecoming's ending back when he was doing interviews in 2017). That's also what lines of dialogue like "I don't trust that Mr. Stark" (from Aunt May) and "a little rebellion is good for team spirit" (Liz) originally foreshadowed. Watts also compared Spider-Man not joining the Avengers in Homecoming to him not joining the FF in ASM #1, claiming the inspiration came from there. Overall, he seemed self-aware to me about the problem with Iron Man being Peter's mentor, until Infinity War and Endgame made it impossible for Far From Home to divorce Peter from Stark.

The unfortunate thing is that the shareholders at Sony and Disney have more pull than Feige, and the Russos have more creative pull than Watts who was a newcomer and working on a "less important" film than Civil War/Infinity War/Endgame. So both Feige and Watts had to work around those people and be reactionary to what they set up/wanted to do half the time. That's my general reading of what went down. I think if Feige and Watts had it their way completely, MCU Spider-Man would have been a lot better.

Perhaps.

Those are good points.

[Jman27]

As long as they are good. I guess I would be ok. But they gotta prove it to me sure Itsv was great but I gotta see them do the same for live action on a more consistent basis. The reason I like the Mcu spiderman is mainly cause he won't be excluded from the big events like civil war, infinity war and endgame. I enjoy those interactions he has with the other heroes.

[Krec99]

Let Sony keep them the MCU Spider-Man is ass acts nothing like Peter Parker doesn’t feel like the character I read about

[HypnoHustler]

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.

[Krec99]

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.

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

[Arsenal]

To me, the ideal scenario would be Marvel makes the movies while Sony makes the games.