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| Source: Marvel |
Well, here we are on a Tuesday evening, usually pretty slow. Guess it’s time to take a quick look at the state of geek entertainment. We see a story about Patrick Stewart wanting to be in the next Wolverine movie, that’s interesting, J.J. Abrams wants to move up the release date for Star Wars: Episode 7, awesome, oh and…
SPIDERMAN IS COMING TO THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE! OMG OMG OMG!!!
Now that we’ve calmed down a little bit, let’s take a look at why this could be the biggest thing to happen to geek entertainment since Batman v Superman. And possibly even bigger.
1. The Deal is Incredible – Marvel announced in a press release that they would be partnering with Sony Pictures to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (also known as the Avengers Universe). According to the release, “the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films. Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films.”
Now let’s break down what this means. When it says Spider-Man could appear in an MCU movie, it means he’s most likely going to appear in one of the Marvel movies slated for release in the next ten years. He could very well show up in Captain America: Civil War in 2016, although they’d have to move fast to make that happen. From there, Sony will basically allow Marvel to create the next trilogy on their own. We’re guessing that “creative control” will be mostly symbolic, since Sony clearly has no idea how to handle the franchise.
2. Another Character is Back Under Marvel – Now let’s look at the current state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with our newly updated infographic.
As you can see, at this point, the only major Marvel property not under the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the X-Men. Given the success of Fox’s X-Men movies, especially the critical and commercial success of X-Men: Days of Future Past, it’s unlikely Fox will be giving up the property anytime soon. But Fox is doing such a great job, we don’t mind them keeping it.
3. Sony Can’t Handle Spider-Man – Fans have been calling for Spider-Man to be a part of the Avengers movie universe for years. Rumors started flying around that it could actually happen, but it seemed kind of far-fetched. Sony bought the rights to Spider-Man from Marvel in 1999 for $7 million, and seemed to be doing well with it. The movies have been blockbusters for over a decade, and Sony publicly stated their plans to turn him into a movie franchise to rival Marvel Studios. They had writers and directors working on spin-off movies, The Sinister Six and Venom. Andrew Garfield was well-received as the new Peter Parker. Sony released The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was clearly intended from the very first scene to set up Sinister Six. No way would they give up this lucrative property.
And then it all went wrong. The Venom movie lost direction. Amazing Spider-Man 2 was critically and commercially shunned, the lowest-grossing film of all five Spider-Man movies to date. The prospect of a Sinister Six movie triggered more confusion than excitement. Andrew Garfield publicly stated he didn’t want to play the character anymore. By reaching out to Marvel Studios and securing this deal, Sony is waving a white flag and admitting they could never get their act together. Best to leave it to the pros at Marvel Studios.
4. Spider-Man is Marvel’s Most Popular Hero – An argument could be made that Wolverine is Marvel’s most popular superhero, but we think Spider-Man has more mainstream popularity. Before the X-Men movie, most people didn’t even know who Wolverine was. Meanwhile, Spider-Man has been a pop culture phenomenon since the sixties. It’s only natural to want to see him on the big screen, but the Sony franchise has been (overall) less than stellar.
Meanwhile, Marvel Studios has been making awesome movies about characters as obscure as the Guardians of the Galaxy. With Marvel taking the reins, we have every reason to believe they’ll bring us the Spider-Man movie fans have been dreaming of.
5. Spider-Man is an Avenger – When most people think of the Avengers, they think of Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Hulk. The comic book version of the Avengers is much broader. Really, the comic book Avengers have consisted of whatever characters were most popular at the time. Spider-Man was first offered membership in the Avengers in 1966. The dream of the Avengers has always been about seeing our favorite heroes on the screen, fighting alongside each other. At last, we can see Iron Man blasting repulsors next to Spider-Man shooting webs.
Are you excited about Spider-Man’s new direction?
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<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="33594 ">12 Comments
It'll be interesting to see how it goes. I wouldn't mind them using the Miles Morales version from the Ultimate universe. Or have a Peter Parker in the Captain America movie (which at this point seems like Avengers 2.5) and then kill him off in the separate Spider-Man movie to set up Miles taking over.
That's a great idea. I love seeing superheroes working together to fight evil.
Very excited that they finally pulled them all together. And I'm all right with X-Men being separate. There are enough Avengers now.
The Sony Spider-Mans started out incredibly strong. They were wildly successful both with audiences and critics. What happened was they opened the floodgates for everyone else. I don't see any advantages of this acquisition other than more interconnected movies. Except Spider-Man will always be a loner, so that's…awkward. It makes fans happy, fine, but all I see is Marvel hastening a very big fall. Which, you know, was already depicted in the diminishing box office returns of the Spider-Man films. Glad they're not making their own doom obvious!
"Glad they're not making their own doom obvious"
They are leaving Doom to Fox. 😉
Yeah, we're crossing our fingers for Miles
Still hoping for the Avengers vs. XMen movie in ten years, though
only major Marvel property not under the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the X-Men
Fantastic Four? Silver Surfer? Doctor Doom?
Studios are not geek oriented, but at least now it seems they are listening to their fans. Most people won't even think this is a big deal becasue the comic book world and the movies are still two separate entities. Most of my friends have no idea why it bothered me that Magneto and Pedro didn't have a "moment" in Days of Future Past and then twins showed up at the end of another Marvel franchise movie. I've stopped trying to explain it. I'm happy about this. Also, I'm with Nigel on this; can't wait for that Avengers vs. X-Men movie.
I'll concede Fantastic Four, but Silver Surfer isn't a major draw, and Doctor Doom falls under FF.
Any reason you didn't bother to include Iron Man in the Avengers franchise? You are comparing the single Avenger film against 4 separate Spider-Man films.
I'm not sure where you're seeing that in this article.