Sony and Marvel have struck a deal, paving the way for everyone’s favorite sass-mouthed wall crawler, Spider-Man, to appear in films alongside Iron Man, Captain America and the Avengers.
Let’s rewind a bit. The year is 1996, and after overextending itself during the previous decade’s comics boom, Marvel Comics is broke. But along comes an Israeli toy designer named Avi Arad to save the company, who famously tells creditors not to give up on Marvel yet (“Spider-Man alone is worth a billion dollars,” Arad reportedly said at the time).
Arad then proceeds to set up Marvel Productions, a film-production unit, and license out some of Marvel’s most popular characters to other studios for movies: Spider-Man to Sony, X-Men and Fantastic Four to Fox, etc.
But somewhere in the mid-2000s, after the Spider-Man series made Sony billions, Marvel realizes it would be more lucrative to make films about their characters themselves, instead of licensing them out. So they film Iron Man and begin setting up the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
But there’s a problem: Characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men are still licensed to other studios. So these characters can’t appear in Marvel’s films. Which is why, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there’s no mention of mutants (this is part of the X-Men license), and in the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver have been changed from mutants to “miracles.”
Then there’s Spider-Man. He’s probably Marvel’s most iconic character, but up until now, he couldn’t appear in any of Marvel’s films. But all that’s changed, with Marvel announcing they’ve worked out a deal to have Spider-Man make appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even as Sony continues to make its own Spider-Man films (which, it appears, they have decided to reboot yet again).
This is pretty interesting for a number of reasons, especially as it pertains to Captain America 3: Civil War, which is due out on May 6, 2016. In the comics, that storyline has Spider-Man featured in a pivotal role. Could that be the first Spider-Man appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Time will tell. Who do you think Sony and Marvel should cast next as Peter Parker? I like Miles Teller myself, but he’s unfortunately committed to Fox’s new Fantastic Four movies.
Source: Marvel
Via: io9
