Spidey Comes Home

By Danielle Dennehy, 2022

Published 10/03/19

After hitting 1 billion at the box office, Spider-Man: Far From Home posed a bright future for Spider-man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The rights to portray the iconic character on the big screen have been owned by Sony Pictures since the 1980s. Under Sony, a trilogy and a reboot, starring Tobey McQuire and Andrew Garfield, respectively, have been released. However, it was not until 2015 that Sony made a deal with Disney, who owns Marvel Studios, to share the rights to the character. This allowed Spider-man to appear in the MCU and interact with Disney-owned characters such as Iron Man. This version of Spider-man made his first appearance in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War with Tom Holland portraying the teenage web-slinger. Holland’s Peter Parker, praised by critics and fans alike, has starred in 2 solo movies and 3 other MCU movies, including this year’s blockbuster hit Avengers: Endgame.

In the midst of Far From Home's success, bad news struck as it was announced that Disney and Sony called off their deal. Disney, who already owned the merchandising rights to Spider-man, wanted a 30% co-finance deal with Sony. Unfortunately, the two studios could not reach a compromise, which meant that Spider-man could only appear in Sony-produced movies. This also meant that Spider-man could no longer be apart of the MCU, possible Avengers movies in the future, or interact with any characters owned by Disney (which is a lot of Marvel characters.) The news was met with outrage from the internet and led to many siding with one of the studios. Fans begged Sony and Disney to make up, but Sony CEO Tony Vinciquerra told Variety that, "for the moment, the door is closed." It seemed like all hope was lost, until September 27th, when it was announced that the two studios were able to make a new deal. Recent reports have stated that it was Tom Holland’s appeals to both studios that led to the make-up. Holland and his co-stars such as Zendaya took to social media to celebrate the news with fans.

Spider-Man 3 will be released on July 16th, 2021 and will be produced by Marvel Studios’ president Kevin Feige.