“I lost the kid.” – Tony Stark

Due to recent disagreements between Marvel and Sony, Sony takes away the rights to Spiderman from Marvel and cuts all ties. 

The two companies have had a five-movie deal that lasted a total of three years. During renegotiations, there was a disagreement over how much money each company got. The decision has led to backlash and will affect the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

In 1999, Sony bought the rights to Spider-Man from Marvel, who at the time was trying to avoid bankruptcy. Spider-Man was one of the most popular comic book characters in the 1900’s and is widely known around the world. May 3, 2002, Sony released their first movie with the character. It’s titled Spider-Man and the character was played by Tobey Maguire. Two other films were released with Maguire’s character over the course of five years. Another two films were released under Sony titled The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2 which cast Andrew Garfield.

In 2015, Sony and Marvel made a five-movie deal to allow Marvel to include the character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The character is played by british actor Tom Holland and first appeared in Captain America: Civil War. He appeared in his own two solo movies, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home. He also reprised his role in two Avengers movies, Infinity War and Endgame. 

Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige told Entertainment Weekly, “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.” 

At the end of the deal, the two companies began to renegotiate a new deal due to the success of the character. In the new negotiations, Marvel asked for 50 percent of the profits from the movies which was a ten times increase from their previous five percent. Sony immediately pulled the character from Marvel and ended negotiations. 

After news broke, the Marvel fans, staff, and actors were in disbelief and were disappointed with the news. In the Marvel movies, Spiderman was expected to follow in the footsteps of Tony Stark (Iron Man) and lead the new crew of Avengers. Fans were excited to watch the character develop and grow into more of a leader as the movies continue. Now that Sony has pulled him from the MCU, the future of the movie franchise and the story line is in question. Marvel or Sony have yet to release any official statements.

“It’s a loss for everyone, Marvel Studios can’t use one of the best heroes of their universe and one they’ve been setting up to have a big role going forward, Sony can’t use any Marvel characters that aren’t Spider-Man related so Iron Man, Nick Fury, and any other big influence on the current Spider-Man’s life can’t be talked about,” said senior T.C. Etherton. 

Due to the backlash, there have been rumors that the two companies are renegotiating to get Spiderman back to Marvel. No official deal has been reached as of now but many fans are hopeful in the character’s return. “I’m still holding out hope that they reach a new deal. The next Spider-Man movie begins production in summer 2020, so they still have plenty of time to work a deal out,” said Etherton.