What The Marvel-Sony Spider-Man Deal Means

The landscape has shifted with the agreement, which will see Marvel get to include the web-slinging hero in one of its movies for the first time since 1999.

The implications of Sony and Marvel’s Spider-Man deal, which was announced on Monday, are now becoming clearer.

Spider-Man will be included in an upcoming Marvel title for the first time in nearly two decades, and that film is reported to be next year’s Captain America: Civil War.

Variety reported that, in essence, the deal will work out cheaply for both parties. Effectively, neither studio will receive a cut from the proceeds of the other studio’s useage of the Spiderman character in future movies. Without the deal, Disney (which owns Marvel) would have to part with millions in order to use him.
Spider-Man is set to appear in the Marvel universe for the first time in ages

Now, Spidey will get to share the same cinematic universe as Iron Man and Thor, in the same way that they do in the comic books.

As for what Sony gets out of the deal, they would appear to be using the popularity of the Marvel movies to its advantage, following the comparative disappointment of theirAmazing Spider-Man 2 last year. Fans have been clamouring to the wall-crawling superhero inhabit the same world as the Avengers for some time, and the resultant goodwill should reflect back on Sony ahead of a new standalone ‘Spider Man’ film, scheduled to arrive in July 2017.

Two spin-off projects involving Spider-Man villains – Sinister Six and Venom – also appear to have had new life breathed into them, although their release dates will almost certainly have to be pushed back to accommodate script re-writes caused by Sony’s reboot. Sinister Six was originally tipped for a November 2016 release.

However, it would appear that the previously scheduled Amazing Spider-Man 3, the third instalment of Andrew Garfield’s portrayal of the character, has been cancelled for the time being, since it is unlikely that Sony will want to associate itself with a perceived flop.

Characters which feature in cross-over films between studios are few and far between, because each party normally thinks that it won’t get anything in return for agreeing to lease a character’s likeness. But Monday’s deal shows that, where bottom lines are involved, then mountains can be moved.