It looks like Avengers Endgame was the end for more than just Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov – in the present day, at least. Reports coming out of Hollywood say the two studios who have been ‘sharing’ Spider-Man across the MCU and his own cinematic franchise have parted ways. This potentially means the next two scheduled Spidey movies will go ahead with no further involvement from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Tony has passed away, but what about Happy Hogan and Nick Fury who played such a large part in Far From Home. Will Tom Holland’s webbed wonder not make any more appearances with the Avengers?
According to the exclusive breaking news in Deadline: “Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige won’t produce any further Spider-Man films because of an inability by Disney and Sony Pictures to reach new terms that would have given the former a co-financing stake going forward.
“A dispute that has taken place over the past few months at the top of Disney and Sony has essentially nixed Feige, and the future involvement of Marvel from the Spider-Man universe, sources said.”
Basically, Disney and Marvel wanted a bigger share of future Spider-Man movies’ box office takings.
Sony, meanwhile, is celebrating Far From Home becoming the studio’s biggest ever hit, taking $1.1billion on top of Venom’s impressive $856million haul, and wants to bank as much of that as possible. Apparently, Disney was pushing for “a 50/50 co-financing arrangement between the studios.”
Sony will be feeling confident with a full roster of upcoming projects from the larger Spider-Man universe, including Jared Leto’s Morbius movie. The studio also nabbed the Oscar form Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse.
But can they really succeed without any input from Marvel? Will Spider-Man really not appear in Marvel Phase Four and beyond?
Studio head Kevin Feige is the creative master behind every single MCU hit (and no flops whatsoever) and also co-produced the first two Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. Deadline also reported that Feige unofficially helped polish up Venom.
Tom Holland is undeniably fantastic as Spidey, but his films have hugely benefitted from MCU cross-pollination.
Spider-Man’s global appeal has received an immeasurable boost from his involvement front and centre with the Avengers. His standalone movies have also benefitted from MCU cameos, most notably Tony Stark in the first, and the emotional weight of his death in the second.
Far From Home also benefitted from hitting cinemas straight after Endgame and being confirmed as the final chapter in Marvel Phase Three.
Has Sony made a mistake, or did Disney push for too much? Or can they resolve the situation?
Marvel fans will be watching nervously…
ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN DEADLINE