All major movie studios met in a recent Studio Executives round table held by The Hollywood Reporter. With that, we’ve got some great news for Spider-Man and his future in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as Sony’s Universe of Marvel characters.
Top executives from all 7 major Studios attended this round table. We saw Alan Horn, chief creative officer and co-chairman of Walt Disney Studios, Toby Emmerich, from New Line Cinema, Donna Langley, Chairman of Universal, Scott Stuber from Netflix, Paramount chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos, Amazon Studios head Jennifer Salke and Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony’s Motion Picture Group all sitting around each other. There was quite a lot to learn from the Roundtable but the best that we MCU loves could take from it was what Tom Rothman had to say about Spider-Man’s return to the MCU with a shiny new deal.
Let’s rewind as to what happened a while back. Disney and Sony had a fallout regarding Spider-Man after the big success of Far From Home. Spider-Man was suddenly pulled out of the MCU. Then Tom Holland had quite an emotional chat with Disney CEO Bob Iger and Sony’s Tom Rothman simultaneously. A while later, Disney and Sony managed to devise a new deal. Spidey was back in the MCU with a release date for Homecoming 3 which will be co-funded by Sony and Disney. Along with that Spidey has got another MCU appearance beyond Spider-Man 3.
The new deal between Sony and Marvel states that Spider-Man will also appear un Sony’s Universe or Marvel characters. The seeds for that have already been planted with the Morbius trailer. And Tom Holland will also be appearing in Venom 2, as the sources have suggested. So there’s a lot which we will be getting from Spider-Man in the coming years. With all this, people have been asking whether Spidey’s stay in the MCU is permanent or not. That’s because he is contracted for just one more movie MCU appearance as mentioned above. Is Feige writing Spidey out of the MCU? Well now we’ve got a probable answer for this question.
At the Roundtable, Tom Rothman was asked whether the deal with Disney will extend beyond Spider-Man 3 and here’s what he had to say:
“I hope so. I think this was a classic win-win-win. I think it was a win for Sony. I think it was a win for Disney. I think it was a win for fans and moviegoers. The only thing I would say about that is that news cycles and the rhythm of negotiations don’t necessarily overlap… I think we would have gotten there and the news got ahead of some things.”
Well it certainly is a win for all of us. There have been positives from Sony & Disney’s coalition and everyone knows that. So, Spider-Man should certainly stay in the MCU as long as Disney wants to use him because the deal between Sony & Disney allows both studios to flexibly use the best version of the Web Slinger. The deal has only extended to 2 more official Spider-Man appearances in the MCU because both Disney & Sony want to see what comes out of it.
Spider-Man’s future in the MCU depends upon Spider-Man 3 making big money at the Box Office. Sony & Disney are investing 75% & 25% respectively upon Spider-Man. If the third movie makes huge money and Sony’s 75% income is quite a lot, only then will we be looking at the deal to go ahead. Considering that the previous film made $1.1 Billion+, Sony’s income in the next Spider-Man movie will be huge as well. And that means the deal between Sony & Disney could go on and on (unless Disney becomes greedy and wishes to raise their stake in the expenditure & income of the solo Spider-Man movies). Sony is already getting to use Spider-Man in their shared Universe so they should have no problems at all.
Get ready for Spider-Man 4, 5 & 6 as well because it’s on!!
