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This all seemed to become official at this weekend's Disney D23 event, where statements made by key players seem to suggest that it's all over.
Holland said to EW.com,
"Basically, we’ve made five great movies. It’s been five amazing years. I’ve had the time of my life. Who knows what the future holds? But all I know is that I’m going to continue playing Spider-Man and having the time of my life. It’s going to be so fun, however we choose to do it. The future for Spider-Man will be different, but it will be equally as awesome and amazing, and we’ll find new ways to make it even cooler."
Remember, his film contract is with Sony, not Disney.
Kevin Feige said about the situation,
"We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we’d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and I’ll always be thankful for that."
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I'm effing pissed. Up until when Sony and Disney came together to allow Spider-Man into the MCU films, the Spider-Man films were great, but old. Same thing over and over, from within the Spidey franchise realm. When he showed up in the MCU, the origin crap was more or less scrapped for a much more original character-discovery, going straight to the Peter Parker/Tony Stark association.
And that association became an amazingly touching relationship between mentor and pupil, not to mention the jump to Spidey's amazing Stark-tech suit.
Spider-Man was fresh once again and Holland brought a totally new and fun spark to the character that we never saw before.
There's a reason the latest Spider-Man film pulled in over $1 billion at the box office. (That's directed right at Sony.)
With Spidey supposedly out of the MCU, I have to wonder if Sony will just start up where the last film left off, or move forward, ignoring the cliff-hanger brought on my Mysterio? And now the character will be a Stark-less character, with no armor, just his suit, or the classic Spider-Man. No more support from ay other MCU characters, and no more Happy for Aunt May. Which I thought was the cutest character development ever.
I would not be surprised if that cliff-hanger at the end of the last film was a potential leverage move by Disney**, knowing what was coming with the upcoming negotiations. It would be very much like Disney to do that.
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I'm pissed at both brands for this break-up.
I'm pissed at Disney for doing what they always do, and that's push for a bigger piece of the pie with all their business partners. Sure, they bring an immense amount of value to properties they touch, but their greed is annoying. Especially right now in this instance. And yet, as we can see over the last few years, Disney did bring an immense amount of box office value to the Spider-Man character/franchise with his wonderfully crafted inclusion into the MCU. And they were only getting 5% of the revenue off their work.
Sony on the other hand, wanting to keep a bigger piece (95% of the revenue) of the huge pie that Disney crafted with their spin on the character, is disappointing and yet, not shocking either. They have recently had some great success with their animated film "Into the Spider-Verse," and they seem to have done well enough with "Venom" to feel like they can stand on their own without Disney's superior film crafting. But to be honest Venom did OK and the character itself was going to be very hard to screw up and they didn't.
Then there's the little bargaining chip Disney has, which is that they have the TV rights to Spider-Man...
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I can't wait to see what happens with the next Spidey film and who wields the peripheral marketing muscle? Does Disney market the movie toys and other movie products that usually come out with a film? If so, Sony is going to have a dull edge in the marketing campaign. Not sure if you had noticed, but when Disney was putting pressure on another studio for the Fantastic Four rights, the last film had zero additional swag come out... no toys or anything, it was just a film release. Oh, and they pulled the title from print.
But Disney is also not for wanting. They now have ALL the character rights from Fox that they just bought up so they can do what they want and have a lot of opportunities in their future to improve on the Marvel and other characters they just absorbed or reacquired.
And then there's always the hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will budge just a little to let us continue to enjoy the MCU version of Spidey. If we can predict the schedule, the next Spider-Man film could come out in 2021, which means pre-production would not start until early 2020. Unless Sony backs off on the pace and let's things simmer down.
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But here we are... the fans, left out in the cold once again because of contract negotiations.
We have to remember, it's not about us, no matter how we feel, it's about the profits the entertainment industry can make off of us and their decisions are based on that projection. Sony believes they can move forward with a successful Spider-Man world while Disney was probably tired of busting their asses for only 5% of the profits.
I hate to say it but I think I'm mostly on the side of Disney with this one and it's a really good chance that I won't support the next or any other Spider-Man product that comes out after this. Spidey had a massive universe of opportunity in the MCU. Sure, he has a slew of characters in his own realm, but if we see Green Goblin one more time... ug!
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That's that for now and it's a bummer news bit for sure.
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**When I say Disney, I mean Marvel, but when Disney bought Marvel, Marvel's business practices and marketing tactics changed drastically, so I make no mistake in who is running Marvel.
ew.com: Tom Holland, Kevin Feige Spider-Man future with Disney & Sony
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