Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last week and change, you know Sony Pictures was recently hit by a major cyber attack, the origins of which remain unknown. In what’s being reported as an unprecedented data theft that includes social security numbers, salaries, film screeners and emails, over the last few days, the party(s) responsible has been slowly releasing various pieces of information its collected off Sony servers. Up until now, it hasn’t been anything of interest to most of us average nerds, but a new piece of intel has caused a massive stir we couldn’t have imagined.
In a new set of emails that were summarized by The Wall Street Journal, it would appear as early as October, Marvel and Sony were in talks to bring Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Explained the outlet, “the e-mails reveal extensive discussions between executives at Sony and Marvel owner Walt Disney, all the way up to their respective chief executives Kaz Hirai and Robert Iger
“In an Oct. 30 e-mail, Sony Pictures president Doug Belgrad tells Ms. Pascal about a potential scenario that would see Marvel produce a new trilogy of Spider-Man movies while Sony retains ‘creative control, marketing and distribution.’
“In a separate e-mail, Ms. Pascal tells a business partner that Marvel wanted to include Spider-Man in its planned third Captain America movie.â€
The report goes on to explain that, according to sources close to the matter, talks eventually broke down between the studios, thus leading Sony to plan a “Spidey summit†in January that would include talk of “an animated Spider-Man comedy that would be produced by Chris Miller and Phil Lord, the team behind 22 Jump Street and The Lego Movie, as well as previously disclosed Spider-Man spin-offs focused on villain team Sinister Six, super-foe Venom, and women from the webslinger’s life.†In addition, there’s also indication Pascal had communication with Sam Raimi about having the Evil Dead creator return to possibly produce and/or direct the franchise.
Okay, got all that? Good, because we’re still wrapping our minds around it.
Some of the items, such as Marvel wanting to include the webslinger in Captain America: Civil War make sense because the character’s such an important part to the original comic book storyline. However, other bits such as the “animated comedy†throw us for a complete loop. This wouldn’t be another TV series, those rights belong to Marvel, this would be a straight-up animated feature, and that blows our minds, especially when the prospect of Lord & Miller being involved is added into the mix.
It’s insane to think about how close we apparently were to seeing Spider-Man back where he belongs on the silver screen. But, sadly, the Hollywood gods were not shining down on Peter Parker this year.
Are you ready to see Spider-Man return to Marvel’s hands in movie form? Let us know in the comments below.
My hope is this: Since there have already been 5 Spidey movies with two origin stories, we don’t need to sit through another full-length origin movie. We all know it and we don’t want to see it again. If this agreement happens (fingers crossed), they should introduce Peter Parker in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., even have Spider-Man help on some of the missions maybe. That way the character can be established in the MCU and he can be thrown in another Marvel movie (Cap 3 apparently is the hope) with maybe a small scene introducing him for those who don’t watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., then start the new Spidey trilogy from there. it would be clean and would avoid yet another full origin story reboot.
Spider Man needs to be back with Marvel. He needs to be in Civil War. Sony needs to just give him back completely. Just keep all the actors the same as the last two films and everything will be great.
MCU is kicking ass and taking names right now, the sooner they can get all the rights back for all the franchisee, the better. I want to see an infinity was storie line, a good representation of silver surfer and could you imagine if MCU made the “what if” lines as movies or tie them into show like agents of shield? Drop the cash Disney, and take my money now….
Having spiderman involved in the mcu specifically the civil war would be the greatest christmas gift of all.
Sony sucks for not letting Spidey be part of Civil War. Seriously, he is pretty pivotal to the story and I’m sure it all comes down to money.
I’d take that info with a grain of salt. If I were crafty and morally ambiguous enough to steal Ss#s, I’d really get a kick out of distributing false info supposedly from my data trove!
Why the fuck would you take that with a grain of salt? This is directly from Sony themselves, unfiltered and no BS.
…all these nerds are only thinking about them pretty colors and costumes thrown together just for the sake of it. The ONE thing that got my interest here is the idea of bringing Sam Raimi back. I wrote an article years ago when Spider-Man 4 got cancelled that “maybe” down the line Sony would realize their mistake and ask Raimi to come back to the franchise. I hope he does, and then he could take things where he left off and finally show an older more experienced Spidey that is finally married to MJ and, I don’t know, maybe this time he’ll have creative freedom and Sony won’t fuck with its own product again? I now you people love Marvel, but I’d rather have movies with personal journeys and actual character arcs like Spider-Man 2 than over-budgeted and hollow Power Rangers stuff like The Avengers. *Preparing myself for the crap storm coming my way in 3, 2, 1*
Yeah… Sony I feel really doesn’t really know what to do with him.. don’t get me wrong, everyone loves a good origin story, but they keep retelling it, tweaking it as they see fit, adding and subtracting characters that they feel are relevant and I just feel it’s time to give Spiderman back to it’s creators because they are the ones that in the end are going to do the character the most justice.
I’m torn really, because part of me wants all the Marvel characters together and able to interact, but on the other hand when multiple studios own the characters we get more movies. Think, if Disney owned everything we wouldn’t have gotten FIVE Marvel movies this year. Plus, Sony has done an incredible job with The Amazing Spider-Man movies, and I’m really not ready for ANOTHER reboot.
Bring spidey. Not Andrew or his garbage universe. Tobys was better. But need new spidey. Bring huge jackman as wolverine too
Yes bring spidey in please but find a better Spider-Man and go back to the original universe. The reboot was garbage. Also get Huge jackman for wolverine.
Not sure why a Spider-Man comedy would throw you for a loop. A major part of his character is being a wise-cracking smart-ass. He’s always been the comic relief of the Marvel world.
Even if a deal was made this sentence would still worry me. “Sony retains ‘creative control, marketing and distribution.’” Since, you know, creatively Sony is what has killed Spidey on the big screen.
Wolverine and Spider-Man are on the Avengers roster. Marvel just needs to out right buy their property back from the other two film companies and do what needs to be done, and what we all want!!!
Two words: Infinity Gauntlet
Moral of the story: Never sell away 100% your rights. It’s sad such a great character can’t be part of MCU. Imagine the things the geniuses at Marvel could do with Spidey.
As much as I’ve love to see the webhead in the MCU, I’d rather Sony didn’t have “creative control” on the project, because their “creative control” shoehorned Venom into Spider-Man 3 when it didn’t need to be, and forced the franchise into being rebooted behind Sam Raimi’s back when he was under the impression that he was going to make Spider-Man 4 without their interference.
I know I’m in the minority here, but I’m more comfortable with MCU sans Spidey. I know he was a critical part of Civil War, but even in the comics I’ve never felt like he belongs. He’s a great character and has an awesome universe all on his own, but somehow the character just doesn’t feel right as part of the more Avenger-oriented aspect of the marvel Universe. And I’ll say the same about X-Men too. Avenger and Cosmic work well together, but there’s just something inherently different about Spidey and the X-Men that make them feel like they thematically clash with the rest of the Marvel Universe, cinematic or otherwise.
The X-Men don’t work well with cosmic?
Tell that to The Dark Phoenix Saga…
spiderman must return to marvel n they should bring back sam raimi to this franchise. they must put spiderman in avengers also
I’m not the only Raimi fan?
Spidery plays such an important narrative role in the Civil War arc that I was almost disappointed to hear that marvel was going to try to adapt it without him. Having him in the movie would be a dream come true. Even if they can’t work out the fine print in time for the film, I think they will need to have some sort of character replacing him in the film in order to fill the giant plot vacancy peter’s absence will leave behind.
Fuck yeah!
Spider-Man is my hero. It’s time he got some screen time with the other greats. He’s a staple franchise and marvel should expend all costs to bring him home
My guess is that Disney would have to offer a very large sum of money. Currently, Sony’s Spiderman franchise is worth over 1.5 billion domestically. Spiderman is one of Sony’s biggest and most profitable film franchises. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony was seeking at least 2 billion for the Spidey rights. Surely, Disney has the financial power to acquire Spiderman. They could probably drop another 4 billion (just like they did for Marvel and Star Wars) without breaking a sweat. Spiderman’s addition to the Avengers line up would be sweet and would certainly yield additional interest in the Avengers/Cap America film franchises, but that alone isn’t worth a multi-billion dollar deal to acquire the film rights. While the Spiderman franchise is still profitable, it has been steadily losing steam and full acquisition may be a risky venture for Disney considering that Spiderman stand-alones, even under Marvel’s umbrella, are likely to under perform. I think our best hope in seeing Cap and Spidey on screen together is a situation where Disney can lease the character film rights for a few choice films, as it seems that Sony is unwilling to relinquish creative control if the studios were to in a joint production.
It would be great if a movement could be started to show executives at Sony just how well Spider Man would be received in the the MCU!!! The same goes for the X-Men at Fox! They ALL need to be allowed to interact! As great as Marvel’s films are doing, I think they could only do better with the inclusion of their other comic properties and that would definitely benefit Sony and Fox as well.
As much as we can all will it, Sony isn’t going to part with Spiderman unless one of two things happens:
1. Marvel offers them a ridonkulous sum of money.2. Sony’s efforts at Spiderman bomb and create huge loses over a several year span and Sony is forced to sell off the rights to recoup some of their loses.
The company isn’t going to just hand over Spidey to Marvel by the goodness of their hearts. Studio executives see one thing: $$$.
I had an actually really great idea That involves Marvel/Disney, Sony and Fox it could make a lot of people happy and no one loses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FxhsTP–3U
I would love to see this current Spider-Man be thrown into the Marvel Universe. I mean he’s done a great job with these past two movies so why not make him more popular than by throwing him into the mix with Iron Man and Captain America.
They already have the X-Men crossover in Age of Ultron, so why not bring spidey on board? The super soldier serum was supposed to be related to the one in the spider that bit Peter in one of the versions in the comics… It would be nice to have another person who was normal but got powers from an experiment…
Yeah, but it’s not really a crossover with just 2 X-Men characters. Not that I am disliking the Scarlet Witch or Quicksilver because I love their characters
They can use Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch because they are part of the Avengers and I’d assume when Marvel sold the rights to Fox it was settled that way. However they can’t be mutants and they can’t be Magneto’s children because those rights belong to Fox.
Spiderman’s part of the Avengers, technically speaking..
…what crossover? Did I miss something? The Avengers and X-Men are completely different things in movies
I’d be thrilled to basically see most of the characters thrown in together. A Spidey/Wolverine story line would be kind of awesome to see on screen.