Updated 8/24/19
UPDATE: While being interviewed at D23 by EW.com, actor Tom Holland and producer Kevin Feige confirmed that Spider-Man would be leaving the MCU as expected with the fall-out between Sony and Disney.
Holland said:
“Basically, we’ve made five great movies. It’s been five amazing years. I’ve had the time of my life. Who knows what the future holds? But all I know is that I’m going to continue playing Spider-Man and having the time of my life. It’s going to be so fun, however we choose to do it.”
“The future for Spider-Man will be different, but it will be equally as awesome and amazing, and we’ll find new ways to make it even cooler.”
In a separate interview, Feige said:
“We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we’d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and I’ll always be thankful for that.”
So that’s it. Spider-Man and Tom Holland’s time in the MCU is over, at least for the foreseeable future, and as Feige said, it was great to see him in the five movies interacting with various Avengers and Samuel L. Jackson‘s Nick Fury. Hopefully some of what made Holland such a great MCU addition rubs off on him, so that wherever Spider-Man appears next, whether it’s in his own movie or a Venom sequel, it maintains what we liked about his previous appearances.
The original story is below:
It was bound to happen.
Less than 24 hours after it was announced that Sony would rerelease Spider-Man: Far from Home over Labor Day with four minutes of new footage, a celebration of the fact the movie had become Sony’s highest grossing movie of all time, things seem to have hit a major hurdle.
Deadline is now reporting that a stand-off between the two companies about terms could put a very large crimp in Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige‘s plans to use Tom Holland‘s Spider-Man in future Marvel Cinematic Universe movies. In fact, Deadline is reporting that Feige will no longer be involved with the Spider-Man films as a producer because Disney and Sony couldn’t come to terms with Disney’s desire to co-finance future Spider-Man movies.
Apparently, Disney wanted a 50/50 co-financing arrangement between the studios but Sony heads Tom Rothman and Tony Vinciquerra refused to give up that much of the studio’s biggest franchise. They proposed keeping the current terms in which Marvel receives 5% of the future films’ grosses, but obviously, that is a significantly smaller number. (Almost insulting, if you ask me. The last two Spider-Man movies were successful mainly due to their connections to the MCU and Feige’s involvement.)
UPDATE: iO9 was able to get a little more information on the situation, learning that part of the issue was that Feige wasn’t properly credited as a producer for his involvement in other Sony Spider-movies, presumably Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. According to their source, “It’s their belief this dispute is simply over a producer credit and negotiations are ongoing. They further clarified that Feige has contributed to other Spider-centric movies that he did not receive a producer credit on.”
Son has also made a more official statement through Variety:
“Much of today’s news about Spider-Man has mischaracterized recent discussions about Kevin Feige’s involvement in the franchise. We are disappointed, but respect Disney’s decision not to have him continue as a lead producer of our next live action Spider-Man film.”
“We hope this might change in the future, but understand that the many new responsibilities that Disney has given him – including all their newly added Marvel properties – do not allow time for him to work on IP they do not own. Kevin is terrific and we are grateful for his help and guidance and appreciate the path he has helped put us on, which we will continue.”
Some might remember that this arrangement was made between Sony and the Disney-owned Marvel a few years back after the famed hacking of Sony (presumably by North Koreans angry about The Interview). At the time, Amy Pascal was the Chairperson of Motion Pictures at Sony Pictures Entertainment, but she was “fired” in February 2015 just before her contract was up for renewal. She then moved over to production and that included the planned Spider-Man movies produced with Feige and Marvel Studios that would allow Tom Holland to appear in Captain America: Civil War in 2016 as well as the next two Avengers movies, Infinity War and Endgame. (Pascal was also slated to produce an animated Spider-Man movie which turned into Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, an Oscar-winning film that has also done well.)
At the same time, Marvel Studios characters like Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark and Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury would be able to appear in Spider-Man: Homecoming, released in 2017, and the recent Far from Home.
It was a deal that made many fans happy since the last two Spider-Man movies have been far more popular and far less divisive than the five movies that preceded it — three were directed by Sam Raimi and two by Marc Webb, all with different actors as Peter Parker/Spider-Man.
This summer, Spider-Man: Far from Home took in $1.1 billion worldwide, which was more than all the other Spider-Man movies, including Raimi’s Spider-Man 3, which previously topped all others with $891 million.
The Deadline story goes on to say that there are two more Spider-Man movies planned with Tom Holland in the tights and with Jon Watts directing that Feige will not be working on as a producer.
With that sort of friction between companies, it’s doubtful Sony will allow Tom Holland to appear in future Marvel movies either, not that there have been any announced plans for another Avengers reunion.
Looked it up and Amy Pascal had her own production company that had a 4 year deal with Sony going from 2015 to 2019. It was up this year and she instead made a deal with Universal Pictures.
I wonder if executive politics and Amy Pascal leaving Sony for Universal, had anything to do with this deal falling through.
The success of VENOM and INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE may have convinced Sony that it doesn’t need Marvel Studios.
AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and its sequel would also have been hits if they hadn’t each cost $200M.
Also, Disney bought Fox in the meantime, so they got plenty of new toys to play with in the MCU, so they probably think they can afford to play hardball concerning the Spider-Verse. In the short term, they are probably right, and Spider-man just isn’t as big a name as he used to be. If anything, it was the Into The Spider-Verse movie that moved him back into the Major League, not the two more obvious MCU tie-ins with Peter Parker. In the long run, an MCU without Spider-man seems to be detrimental, so time will have to tell if Sony will be able to pull it’s own weight, and the MCU will continue to be the money making machine it is today.
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