Editorial: How Sony and Marvel Studios Could Work Together on the SPIDER-MAN Franchise



The Sony hack is the gift that keeps on giving! Even though Sony has sent out legal letters to news outlets and websites saying if you've received hacked information from their company you need to stop publishing it, some sites have pretty much ignored the legal request.

The Daily SuperHero has not received any of the hacked info, nor received any legal documents from the Sony hack, but the Spider-Man hacked info is easily some of the most interesting info coming out. Click here and here to read what's been published about Spider-Man so far.

To sum up Sony's Spider-Man issues as simply and succinctly as possible from the hacks, Sony and Marvel/Disney nearly worked together to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) via an appearance in Captain America: Civil War. The deal fell through because Sony did not want to give Marvel/Disney the majority of creative control and profits; even though Marvel/Disney would be doing all the work in bringing Spidey to the MCU via Civil War and in his own possible solo MCU film(s). A very one-sided deal when Disney hates working with other studios and sharing profits, so Marvel/Disney replaced Spidey's appearance in Civil War with Black Panther. Sony will now have an executive meeting in January 2015 discussing their plan for the Spider-Man franchise moving forward.

And hopefully they decide to just sell it back to Marvel/Disney, fingers crossed!

With all of that out of the way, a previous report has said there is still a small window of opportunity for Sony and Marvel/Disney to work together to bring Spider-Man into the MCU but a new report claims there is no hope for Spidey to come into the MCU... maybe.

BadAssDigest writes:

"I reached out to my sources in Marvel and followed up on all of this - what's the realistic chance of Spider-Man being in Civil War? According to my sources that ship has sailed and Spidey is not in the current conception of Civil War. The movie will go ahead without Peter Parker.

"For now. That's an important note here; there's always the possibility that Spider-Man gets himself a cameo in the film, some sort of post-credits sting. The process on these films is fluid, and Marvel relies heavily on additional shooting, so nothing is in stone until the film is in theaters. But anyone hoping that the word of Sony and Marvel negotiating could mean Peter Parker having a major role in Civil War should put that hope away. "

Unfortunately, this new report contradicts itself in consecutive paragraphs. First, it states that sources say Spidey will not be a part of Civil War but then back tracks on that statement in the next paragraph by saying that there's still a small chance. Kind of confusing and kind of a pointless report if you're going to say 'NO!' with a 'MAYBE!' right after.

Regardless of this new contradictory report, the following is what The Daily SuperHero thinks should happen IF there's a partnered Spider-Man plan between Sony and Marvel/Disney: 

Sony should allow Marvel Studios to introduce Spider-Man into the MCU and give Marvel one solo Spidey film (for starters and before Sony makes their own Spidey film[s]) to create, produce, distribute and make most of the profits on. A new actor would be cast and used moving forward — sorry Andrew Garfield but this would be Marvel and Disney's call on using Spidey in the MCU. Then, Sony also allows Marvel to use Spidey in cameos and guest appearances in the MCU whenever they want without Sony making any profits on non-leading role Spidey appearances. 
Finally, Sony can use Spider-Man for their own produced films, and make the majority of profits on their Sony-made films with Marvel/Disney making a little something-something as well, but it must not be counter-productive to what Marvel Studios has created for Spidey and follow Marvel Studios' creative path for the hero. Therefore, Sony would still own the rights and each studio would make the most profits on their respective solo films but Marvel would control his story and creative path in all films to not hurt how they've built him up in his MCU appearances.

An ambitious idea, for sure, and it's a plan that might be too hard for both studios to work together to accomplish. Which all leads to the easiest solution, and that's that Sony needs to seriously consider just cutting their loses now and selling all their Spider-Man franchise rights back to Marvel/Disney before the franchise value continues to plummet. 



To read more about Spider-Man, click right here.