Marvel
The rumors, it turns out, are true. Sony’s Spider-Man movie franchise is going to get its second reboot in five years, but this time there’s an added ingredient that’ll massively change things for the wall-crawler—Marvel Studios will be involved, and the character will be folded into the same cinematic universe as the Avengers, Iron Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
The surprise announcement was made late last night, via a joint press release from Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios. While a lot of people have taken this news to mean that Marvel now “has” Spider-Man, that’s not exactly true; Sony Pictures still controls the movie rights to the character and will, the announcement explains, “finance, distribute, own and have final creative control” of any future Spider-Man movies, with Marvel (and, more specifically, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who’ll become a producer) acting as creative consultant.
But more importantly, this new partnership opens the door to the character showing up in Marvel’s own movies—even if it’s still unclear what those movies will be. Spider-Man will “first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe,” according to the announcement, before his first solo Sony picture, which is now scheduled for July 28, 2017. It’s expected that his first cameo will be in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, which is based on a comic book storyline where Spider-Man plays a key role, but that has yet to be confirmed. (It’s highly unlikely he could sneak into Avengers: Age of Ultron, but we can dream, right?) Sony and Marvel are, The Hollywood Reporter notes, also negotiating the possibility of other Marvel characters making cameos in Sony’s Spidey films moving forward. This is, arguably, the best of both worlds.
Well, unless you’re Andrew Garfield, who is likely to be replaced as Spider-Man after only two movies. (The official announcement refers unsubtly to “the new Spider-Man.”) It’s also not ideal for, you know, anyone who was working on the three announced Amazing Spider-Man spin-off movies, which are now on shaky ground. One of them, the Sinister Six movie being written and directed by Drew Goddard, is now officially delayed from its scheduled November 2016 release. And the status of Venom and that all-female team movie with the great working title Glass Ceiling are still uncertain. Otherwise, everything’s coming up Spidey.
The possibility of a deal between Sony and Marvel was first revealed as part of the Sony hack of late last year. Sources within both companies said discussions had since broken down, but apparently they didn’t. Or maybe they resumed. Think of it like Schrödinger’s cat, except with a massive movie franchise at the center of it: We’ve opened the box, and the cat is alive. It’s just been rebooted.
What lies ahead is a lot of speculation: Who will be our next movie Spider-Man? Or, as many were asking on social media in the wake of the announcement, which Spider-Man will it even be: Peter Parker or his alt-world replacement Miles Morales? (It’s likely Peter Parker, but rebooting the charater opens the door to many exciting casting possibilities.) How much input will Marvel have on the Spider-Man movies of the future? And, most importantly of all, after the apathy that met last year’s Amazing Spider-Man 2, is this new incarnation enough to make people excited to see a sixth big-screen outing for the character? Our Spidey senses say yes.
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