Last week, Sony and Disney came to an agreement to work together with the Spider-Man franchise, which means that Spider-Man will now be a part of the Marvel Universe that Disney has successfully been creating over the recent years. Sony will continue to own the franchise and have the final say in what happens to the web slinger, but Disney will be allowed to use Spider-Man in future movies. This works out perfectly for both companies since Spider-Man is one of the most popular comic characters in the Marvel Universe, and Disney has perfected the superhero genre.
Sony has been producing Spider-Man movies since before Disney owned the rights to Marvel superheroes, but they cannot seem to garner the same popularity that Disney has acquired.
This deal would mean that Sony would get great advertisement for a third attempt at a franchise reboot in 2017 whenever they lend the character to the ever successful Disney movies.
Although it seems that Sony benefits the most from this deal, Disney actually comes out on top. “Guardians of the Galaxy” was a box office hit about a comic that no one had heard about and now they will have the well-known Spider-Man at their disposal.
When Spider-Man is in Disney’s movies, then Disney gets the revenue from that movie. Disney had also already owned the merchandising license to Spider-Man, so bringing Spider-Man back into popularity also benefits them in that area.
For fans of the Marvel movies, this deal is the biggest news since the announcement of the first Avengers movie. Spider-Man influences a lot of the major storylines in the comics, including the Civil War series that will be portrayed in the third Captain America movie. This also means that the timeline of movies that Disney announced for the future will have to be redone to allow Spider-Man to fit.
For those fans that enjoyed the most recent series of Spider-Man movies, I am sorry to say that everything is changing. Andrew Garfield, who has been playing Spider-Man in this most recent attempt, has already been rumored to be replaced in the new reboot.
However, no word has been said if this reboot will be a continuation of the most recent storyline or if they will just act like those two movies never happened. As a fan of the Marvel movies, I am just hoping I do not have to sit through a third Spider-Man origin story in my lifetime.
No matter how they decide to continue the Spider-Man series, if this collaboration is successful, then it could be possible for other collaborations to happen.
Besides Sony and Disney, Fox also owns some of the Marvel characters, including the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, and is Disney’s only competitor in the superhero genre. If this collaboration between Sony and Disney does work, then maybe Fox will see its benefits and join in, which would completely bring the Marvel Universe back together again.
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