As we all know, one of the biggest reasons why Marvel
Studios started out the Marvel Cinematic Universe with some of their lesser
known characters like Iron Man and Thor was because they didn’t have the rights
to all of their characters at the time. Mainly, ‘Spider-Man’ was with Sony and
‘X-Men’ and ‘The Fantastic Four’ were with Fox. So that meant that Marvel had
to go with what was, at the time, referred to by some as their ‘B-list’ heroes
but of course as we all know they have gone on to achieve massive success both
critically and commercially with a franchise that is still going strong today.
Meanwhile, Fox and Sony have spent the last few years doing their own thing with
the Marvel characters that they own. Fox recently got the ‘X-Men’ franchise
back in top form with ‘Days of Future Past’ and now all eyes are on the new
‘Fantastic Four’ to see if that film can also deliver. But as for Sony, they’ve
had less success than either Fox or Marvel Studios recently, mainly due to
their extremely polarizing decision to reboot the ‘Spider-Man’ film franchise
just five years after the release of the third Sam Raimi-directed ‘Spider-Man’ film.
But last night, a major news bombshell was dropped when it was revealed that
Sony and Marvel had reached a deal that would allow everyone’s favorite
neighborhood web-slinger to appear in the MCU, something that comic book fans
have been waiting for since the very beginning.
First off, let’s go over the details of this new deal. For
the record, this deal does not mean that Marvel ‘got back’ the rights to
Spider-Man. Sony still owns those rights and will be in charge of distribution,
financing, and ultimately having final creative control over future
‘Spider-Man’ films. However, according to this new deal, Spider-Man will make
his official debut in the MCU in one of the upcoming ‘Phase 3’ films. And then
on July 28, 2017, Sony will release a new ‘Spider-Man’ film but this time
Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige will produce the film along with former
Sony Pictures Chairman Amy Pascal, who recently resigned from her position at
Sony following the controversy surrounding the studio hacking scandal. At the
same time, the studio’s proposed spin-off films, ‘Sinister Six’, ‘Venom’, and a
film centered around some of the series’ female characters, are apparently
still in development presumably not to be produced by Feige. However, it’s also
been revealed that this new film is going to recast the role of Spider-Man and
that ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ lead Andrew Garfield will not be returning for the
new film nor will director Marc Webb. In short, the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ film
series that has polarized many comic book fans ever since it was first
announced has officially come to an end and I will admit that I am a little
disappointed by that.
Now I’ve made it perfectly clear that I am a big fan of both
‘Amazing Spider-Man’ films… and I know that this put me in the minority when it
came to that stance, especially after ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ ended up being
one of the most polarizing films of this past year when it was first released
while also ending up as the lowest-grossing ‘Spider-Man’ film to date.
Nowadays, the film isn’t as polarizing as it was when it first came out and now
it is officially deemed by the internet as a major disappointment… something
that I’ve been constantly been reminded about anytime there a piece of news
surrounding the future of the franchise comes out and believe me, folks, it’s
gotten really annoying. I’m not saying that the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ films are
perfect. The first film will never escape the fact that it was a rushed reboot
and it’s clear that the filmmakers didn’t realize the biggest problem of
‘Spider-Man 3’ when they made the second film. Not only that but it has also
been very much proven that Sony made a lot of changes to the two films to the
point where certain plot-points and scenes that were even featured in the
trailers were cut out entirely. Still, to the series’ credit, it did do some
things better than the Raimi trilogy, namely better action scenes and visuals
and far superior leads in Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.
But in the end, I will say this… this new deal with Marvel
is the right move for both Sony and the Spider-Man film franchise and this is
because it is now being co-handled by the studio that has proven time and time
again that they know what they’re doing. Of course, if you’ve been following me
since the beginning, you know that I’ve showered the MCU with nothing but
praise time and time again. And for the record it does deserve a lot of that
praise giving its excellent track record of films that, if anything, were
incredibly entertaining films even if some weren’t really as good as others; in
my opinion, there has yet to be a ‘bad’ MCU film. Sony, on the other hand,
clearly hit a major roadblock when ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’ didn’t meet their
expectations both critically and commercially. There have been numerous rumors
these past few months about the status of their ‘Cinematic Universe’, from
shifting release dates around to even rumors that Sam Raimi was going to return
to direct another one of these films. For the record, I was supportive of
Sony’s ‘plan’ for future films and spin-offs, namely the proposed ‘Sinister
Six’ and ‘Venom’ films because I wanted to see how those would’ve turned out. It
seems like those two spin-offs are still happening but at the same time I do
feel bad for both Andrew Garfield and Marc Webb who clearly were stuck in a
not-so-great situation and I do wish that they could’ve gotten, if anything,
one last chance so that their franchise can go out on a high note instead of a
low one.
So now let’s start speculating about how Spidey is going to
be incorporated into the MCU, more specifically which MCU film is he going to
appear in? I think it’s safe to assume that he won’t be making a cameo in the
post-credits scenes for either ‘Age of Ultron’ or ‘Ant-Man’ given the fact that
both of these films are coming out fairly soon (just three months in the case
of ‘Age of Ultron’. So given the fact that, in the comics, Spider-Man was a key
player in the ‘Civil War’ storyline, it’s incredibly likely that he’ll be
appearing in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ after all to play the same role he
did in the comics. Though with that said, it’s a little disappointing if this
is true because back when it was confirmed that ‘Cap 3’ would be ‘Civil War’,
they were touting Black Panther to be the one who would take over Spidey’s role
in the story, obviously because at the time, this deal wasn’t official yet. Who
knows? Maybe they’ll have the same overall role in the story but each of them
will side with either Cap or Iron Man. At the same time, I’d actually also be
interested to perhaps see Spider-Man make a cameo appearance in one of Marvel’s
TV shows, either ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ (which I would be extremely excited
about given that it’s my favorite show on TV right now) or one of the upcoming
Netflix shows, the latter of which could definitely work seeing how it takes
place in New York.
As for the new Spider-Man film, believe it or not it now
beats the record previously set by the first ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ film as one
of the quickest franchise reboots ever; in this case of this new film, now just
three years after the last film. But this time, I’m pretty sure we’re not going
to get the origin story again; after all, we’ve already seen the whole ‘getting
bit by a spider’ and the ‘death of Uncle Ben’ plot-points twice now. We don’t
need to see that again. And here’s a suggestion… sometime in the near future
(not in the first new film but in a sequel), why not introduce Miles Morales as
the next Spider-Man like in the comics? Sadly, it seemed like they weren’t
going to do that with the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ films, even after Garfield was
supposedly going to step down from the role after the third film. But now that
those films are no longer happening, it seems much more likely this could
happen. As for who’ll direct this film, I noted before that there were rumors
that Sam Raimi was going to return but unless Sony apologizes to him for trying
to rush him into making a fourth film, I doubt he’ll be back for this one. The
other major rumor is that Phil Lord and Chris Miller are being approached to do
it and well, given their phenomenal track record, I’d be in full support of
that decision.
So I know a lot of people are excited about Spider-Man
‘coming home’ to the MCU but for the record, this doesn’t mean that Marvel got
the rights to the character back. Sony’s still in control of that and instead,
Marvel Studios and Sony are going to work together on all future Spider-Man
related film projects and overall, this is probably the best deal they could’ve
made and not just have Marvel 100% get back the rights. After all, Sony hasn’t
been having a good run recently when it comes to their films and Spider-Man was
basically their last major film franchise left. So with this new deal, both
sides get something out of it instead of one of them being left out in the
cold. Now Spider-Man can finally appear in the MCU, something that fans have
been dying to see happen, and by all accounts it looks like future ‘Spider-Man’
films are going to turn out much better than before now that Feige and his team
now have a say in how the films turn out. Still, you do have to feel bad for
Andrew Garfield and Marc Webb given how everything went downhill for them
because of what happened with ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’. Part of me wishes that
these were the new films that Feige and co. would work on instead of just
rebooting the film franchise AGAIN!! Still, even as someone who still loves
‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ films, I can’t really complain about this deal that
much because it’s clear that Spidey is going to have a much brighter future now
in film. Now if only Marvel and Fox can get along…
R.I.P. ‘Amazing
Spider-Man’ films (2012-2014). I’ll still defend you till the day I die.
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