In case you’ve been living under a rock, the once cozy relationship between Marvel and Sony Pictures has gone from an unlikely romance and marriage to divorce. Sony and Marvel are consciously uncoupling and battling over “Spider-Man.” Battling would be the wrong word for it. While some are optimistic of reconciliation, as of right now, Spider-Man and Sony have taken the webcrawler and left the Marvel Cinematic Universe thanks to some warring between the two companies. Given the demands of Disney+ and Fox/Marvel character Development realized that Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige should be compensated for his producing duties on the Sony’s “Spider-Man” movies and Disney asked for a greater piece of the financial pie. That raised Sony’s hackles immediately and talks quickly broke down. Spider-Man will no longer be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe unless the two companies can come to some sort of agreement.
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But feelings are being bruised, and feelings of pride are being hurt as these negotiations, talks and hurt feelings spill out into the press and into the public. Making it worse, is a new warring battle over “Spider-Man” director Jon Watts which could exacerbate the problems. Watts directed both “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” the latter crossing $ 1 billion, the first Spider-Man movie to ever reach that mark and subsequently becoming Sony’s highest-grossing film of all time.
Unfortunately for Sony, Watts is apparently not currently contracted for a third film, and everyone wants a piece of him. Deadline is reporting that while Spider-Man may be gone (for now), that doesn’t mean Marvel wants to see him go. Kevin Feige has helped a lot of young filmmakers leap big-budget studio movies like Watts who had only made one small Sundance indie before taking a leap of faith into the “Spider-Man” universe. This risk paid off big time, and Feige apparently wants to keep him around.
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This is bad news for Sony because Watts is probably going to feel some allegiance towards the man who took a significant risk on the young filmmaker. That said, it’s not like Feige made that decision in a vacuum, Sony made that decision too, and Watts could potentially feel like he’s a child in the middle of a divorce. But there’s denying that Marvel has the better narrative, a studio with very few blemishes and one that Sony let produce their superhero movies with because they’ve led the entire movie industry and creating the gold standard for this genre. Sony is still seen, for better or worse, or rooted in reality or not, as the studio that messed up Spider-Man with the “Amazing Spider-Man” series, the movie that stumbled into a hit like “Venom,” despite the movie not being very good, and being home to an outstanding superhero film (“Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse“), but one that really far grossed far less than it should have considering how spectacular it is.
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Reports have already come out that Watts is being courted by other movie studios as well, but regardless, he’ll surely at least come to the table to listen to whatever Feige and or Sony want to offer him. Tom Holland could have some sway with the filmmaker too. For Sony, departing from Marvel, if they do separate for good, it would be in their best interest to keep the man behind their highest-grossing and most successful film. If the divorce is final and fans are surely crestfallen with the news, Sony could at least trump the fact that Watts was still on board to steer the narrative towards the end of a trilogy; that would surely be some kind of reassuring narrative. But imagine if Sony desperately wants Watts back for that very reason and Marvel steals him away for some other project? The bitterness between the two camps would surely go beyond poisonous. If the possibility of settlement or compromise is out there somewhere, fans better hope the custody battle over Jon Watts doesn’t somehow inadvertently mess it all up.
