Sony‘s Spider-Man gameplan keeps getting odder by the day. First, there’s the decision to launch a superhero universe with classic villain “Venom,” except it won’t be tied to the forthcoming “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” Indeed, the summer blockbuster is the rare union of three studios — Sony, Disney, and Marvel — who’ve decided to share a very valuable property between them. But fans expecting an extended stay by Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe may want to temper their expectations.
Producer and former Sony head Amy Pascal is at CinemaCon this week, and she suggested that Spider-Man swinging with the Avengers may be a limited time deal.
“One of the things that I think is so amazing about this experience is that you don’t have studios deciding to work together to make a film very often. In fact it may never happen again, after we do the sequel. Because Sony, and Disney, and Marvel all decided that the right thing to do was to allow Peter Parker and Spider-Man to be in the MCU and to work with the Marvel guys and have them produce this film,” she told CosmicBookNews. “And I think that was a very rare thing for three companies to do, and a very brilliant thing for them to decide to do because there are only so many stories that you can tell again and again and again about Spidey, and this is something that we would have never been able to do in any other way. So it was a very selfless thing that very smart on the part of all the companies.”
Selfless, sure, but no one wants to split profits on a big superhero like that for too long, especially not Sony who own the screen rights. So it sounds like they’re going to make the most of this creative opportunity, and then venture off on their own again. Perhaps this does leave the door open to Tom Holland’s Spider-Man venturing back into Sony’s standalone universe they’re kicking off with “Venom.” Maybe they do know what they’re doing after all….
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” opens on July 7th.