Anticipation is sky high for this summer’sSpider-Man: Homecoming, but the film is almost as interesting behind the scenes as it is in front of the camera. It’s the result of painstaking talks and negotiations between Marvel Studios’Kevin Feigeand producer/former Sony headAmy Pascal, and it encapsulates three separate studios coming together to make one movie. Sony Pictures finances and distributes, while Marvel Studios (owned by Disney) takes the creative lead and gets to useTom Holland’s Spider-Man in specific Marvel Cinematic Universe movies likeCaptain America: Civil WarandAvengers: Infinity War.
This agreement was not easy to come by—Pascal previously said she and Feige discussed this foryearsbefore they could convince their higher-ups to say “yes”—and while Sony has already set a July 2019 release date foraSpider-Man: Homecomingsequel, the looming question becomes: What happens after that? Well, according to Pascal herself, Spider-Man could exit the MCU just as quickly as he entered it.
In speaking withCosmicBookNewsat CinemaCon, Pascal seemed to imply that the current agreement between Sony, Marvel, and Disney runs out afterSpider-Man: Homecoming 2, and at that point Sony could choose to keep Spidey to itself.
“One of the things that I think is so amazing about this experience is that you don’t have studios deciding to work together to make a film very often. In fact it may never happen again, after we do the sequel. Because Sony, and Disney, and Marvel all decided that the right thing to do was to allow Peter Parker and Spider-Man to be in the MCU and to work with the Marvel guys and have them produce this film. And I think that was a very rare thing for three companies to do, and a very brilliant thing for them to decide to do because there are only so many stories that you can tell again and again and again about Spidey, and this is something that we would have never been able to do in any other way. So it was a very selfless thing that very smart on the part of all the companies.”
This deal between Sony and Marvel/Disney was something of Pascal’s legacy, as she finalized it just before she exited Sony as studio head following the infamous email hack. She remains a producer on most of the studio’s Spider-Man projects, but what she’s basically saying here is that once this contract runs out, it’s not up to her whether it continues or not.
Right now, this partnership is beneficial to all involved. Sony doesn’t have to reboot Spider-Man once again to eyerolls from audiences, as his MCU involvement offers a fresh take on the character. And Marvel Studios finally gets to play with a character it’s wanted back in its fold for a very, very long time.
But Hollywood dealmaking isn’t about being “nice” to one another, and I do wonder what happens when/ifHomecomingand its sequel are huge hits. Does Sony decide it can take it from here and produce its ownSpider-Manmovies with Holland going forward? Or do they re-up with Marvel? Either way, those negotiations are going to bedifficult—Sony may want more control and less of Spidey in other MCU movies, Marvel/Disney may want more of the profits, etc.
As for what this current contract entails, we know that Marvel is involved inHomecomingand its sequel, and we know that Holland at least has a role inAvengers: Infinity Warand probably its sequel. Beyond that, I wouldn’t expect to see a Spider-Man cameo in, say,Ant-Man and the Waspbecause the dealmaking is too complicated for a few seconds of screentime. Marvel no doubt wants to use the character where it counts, and that’s as part of the Avengers.
If Spider-Man does exit the MCU after theHomecomingsequel it’ll be a bummer—especially since Feige and Co. have hit upon the idea of each of these movies spanning a year in the high school life of Peter Parker and thus could follow aHarry Potter-esque pattern. Marvel has plenty of characters to deal with so it won’t hurt them financially to lose Spidey, but creatively you know they want to keep Spider-Man in the MCU fold for as long as possible. So hopefully if an agreement between these studios was struck once, it can be struck again.
In the meantime, we’ve got the movie that resulted from all of this wheeling and dealing coming up soon asSpider-Man: Homecomingopens in theaters on July 7th. Watch the video with Pascal below.
