Yesterday, fandom was rocked by the devastating news that Spider-Man has been exiled from the Marvel Cinematic Universe because of a failed deal between Sony and Disney. (At least for now–negotiations aren’t completely dead and this could just be a power play to make one side give in.) Fingers were pointed, jimmies were rustled, and as the implications set in (Will Spider-Man have to be recast yet again? How many times are they going to make Uncle Ben die? How DARE they? etc.), social media exploded with calls to #SaveSpidey.
(Possible spoilers for Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, so click at your own peril.)
Leading the pack was the MCU’s very own Hawkeye, aka Jeremy Renner, who took to his Instagram with a plea to keep Spider-Man in the MCU. Posting a photo of himself in character as Clint awash in somber violet lighting, he wrote, “Hey @sonypictures we want Spider-Man back to @therealstanlee and @marvel please, thank you #congrats #spidermanrocks#
#please.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1aLBNZDPOl/
Meanwhile, another red-clad Marvel superhero with dubious MCU status weighed in. When one fan asked Ryan Reynolds whether the news would grant us a Spider-Man/Deadpool cross-over, he aimed right for the feels, writing:
“You can. But you can only see it in my heart.”
You can. But you can only see it in my heart.
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) August 20, 2019
Elsewhere, fans assembled their greatest MCU memes in mourning and indignation. Check out some of the best below.
https://twitter.com/ggiannallaperna/status/1164171850932457480
https://twitter.com/kirishapraba/status/1164169795178135552
https://twitter.com/serafine_af/status/1164060727310635008
https://twitter.com/manuelaguds/status/1164128307354525696
https://twitter.com/extracoolcam101/status/1164191745598300162
Sony: Spider-Man is no longer part of the MCU.
Me:#SpiderManFarFromTheMCU #SaveSpidey #boycottsonypictures pic.twitter.com/vKXSwiI9mx
—
Johnny
https://twitter.com/AnshK_25/status/1164148566186586112
https://twitter.com/Lacunasin/status/1164164363617546240
Spider-Man became an Avenger, went through the blip , fought thanos and his army, lost his father figure, got blind sided from mysterio, fought mysterio, got a gf and then got exposed. YOU CANT JUST TAKE HIM OUT OF THE MCU AFTER ALL OF THIS #SaveSpidey #SaveSpiderMan pic.twitter.com/HQz9f7IbtX
— al (@peetasliv) August 21, 2019
Tom Holland rolling up to Marvel Studios to film the third Spider-Man movie #SaveSpidey #SpiderManFarFromTheMCU #SaveSpiderman #SpiderMan pic.twitter.com/nlORBIRVkU
— grace ♡︎’s fae & alyssa (@carolina_tpwk) August 21, 2019
https://twitter.com/savemcuspidey/status/1163940311216926721
MCU fans have gotten used to Big Daddy Marvel getting their way, providing them with an unbroken string of unchallenged successes. How will they cope with the possibility of struggle and, dare I say, failure?
Interesting times.
I sort of saw the Toby MaGuire movies (I definitely saw the first one, and kind of remember seeing the other two, but not quite) and stopped there. This incessant Spiderman reboot makes me dizzy. I have no idea of what’s going on anymore.
As much as Sony is to blame for their decision, I can’t overlook Disney’s attitude in this whole fiasco.
Disney/Marvel Studios had a good deal. Creative freedom to co-produce Spider-Man films (and use the character in other productions) while still taking a 5% share from box-office receipts (that’s a LOT of money, given Far from Home’s numbers)
Meanwhile, Sony – the rightful owner of the rights – profitted without ever interfering in Marvel’s creative process.
And now, Disney wants 50%? Aren’t they satisfied with the money they’re already getting? How much more money do they need? They’re borderling monopoly by this point. Buying Fox, Marvel, Lucasfilm, ABC, ESPN. They’re definitely not losing money, so that’s not an excuse for asking for 50%.
Not only that, but they use comic book media to paint Sony as a villain, putting fanboys against them.
Once again, Sony owns the rights. Sony got them back when Marvel was selling characters and properties left and right because they couldn’t pay their own employees.
If we lose Holland’s Spider-Man, it’ll be a loss. But Disney forced Sony’s hand in this case. You can tell they don’t like competition or having a diverse market. For far less, Marvel axed the Netflix TV shows (because heaven forbid Netflix earns a rightful percentage of the profits for co-producing those shows).
Having said that, no good ever came out of having Tom Rothman as a studio chairman. How on Earth he got that gig at Sony following his disastrous stewardship of Fox is anyone’s guess. Suits have a way of keeping themselves relevant.
And anyone who raises Sony’s failure to produce decent Spider-Man films as a counter-argument for why Disney/Marvel should hold on to the character, I’d argue the first two Raimi films are still untarnished examples of Spider productions done right. And – the mishandled Garfield entries aside – recently, we’ve had Spiderverse. Possibly the best Spider adaptation ever produced for the big screen, 100% made by Sony who gave Phil Lord and his team the necessary creative freedom to make it a labor of love.
*Borderline
Memorandum
re: Spider-Man legal issues.
To Disney: Stop being a big bully. Just because you own all the other shiny toys doesn’t mean you can get by in life without sharing every now and then.
To Sony: $ There are a lot of $ to be made if you keep this tie to the MCU, and not all of them will go into the Mouse’s pockets. Consider your track record on this franchise without MCU and with: which presents better business options for you.
To everyone else in fandom: deep breaths. This will be resolved one way or another.
To North Korean cyberintelligence: feel free to leak this memo.
OKAY.
So no Spider-Man in the MCU does suck but folks are way too quick to jump on Sony for defending its property against the giant media conglomerate that is now Disney. I want Spider-Man in the MCU too but I also want other movie studios to exist. If Disney owns everything, we’ll I am not sure if would get things like Spider-Verse because that might have been viewed as too risky. I mean it took Marvel how long to make Captain Marvel? And a Black Widow movie next year? Disney to a degree is afraid of risk taking.
And for the record, Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse is the best Spiderman movie.
@6. Indeed it is.
I thought Jeremy Renner was doing the singing thing now![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
#3 and #6 You are right. I think Disney/Marvel may have painted themselves into a corner on this. Several Avengers are gone and the others retired. Spiderman/Tom Holland was set up to be the face of Marvel (replacing RD Jr. and C. Evans) and now they are left with Black Panther (very popular) Dr. Strange (OK but no Black Panther or Spiderman) and a bunch of untested newbies (Eternals, Shang Chi, etc.). I’d expect a new Marvel offer to Sony soon.
It’s sad that almost all the tweets have the story wrong. Sony isn’t at fault here. It is clearly Disney. As @3 Eduardo was saying, they asked for 10x more money and having equal control in decision making for, not just the stand-alone Spider-man movies, but all the other Spider-verse projects like Venom,etc. Disney way overreached and the amazing thing is they have played the PR perfectly that everyone is blaming Sony initially.
Fixed that for you. ;-)
Let’s set something straight, all you folks that are holding Sony blameless in all this… Sony did nothing. They didn’t make the movies, they had no creative input, they did *nothing*. Distribution? Please. That’s a menial task at best when it comes to these things. No, they don’t deserve 95% of the profits. It’s Marvel’s character and the Spider-Man (and Spider-Man cameo) movies made by Marvel Studios have all – every single one of them – been successful.
Can’t say the same for Sony’s Spider-Man films. Even the “good” ones weren’t that good. And now that the character made a billion dollars, they think they can replicate that without Marvel Studios? Please.
Now, having said all that, I’m not entirely sure who fronts the cash for the Spider-Man solo films, Marvel Studios or Sony. If it’s Sony’s budget, then they definitely deserve to make all that back plus a bit more. If it’s Marvel Studios’ money, then yeah, Sony deserves nothing.
I think Sony funded the movies completely (and also funded the market campaign, which is usually just as big as production costs with movies), but gave creative freedom to the people of Marvel’s movies.
No, they don’t deserve 95% of the profits. It’s Marvel’s character and the Spider-Man (and Spider-Man cameo) movies made by Marvel Studios have all – every single one of them – been successful.
@13: Marvel sold Spider-Man and the film rights to Sony, 20 years ago, for the price of US$ 7 million.
@15 – important point of clarification: Marvel didn’t sell Spider-Man AND the film rights to Sony. They only sold the film rights. And because they were in financial trouble, Sony got a *very* lopsided deal. Perpetual rights? Nobody in their right mind would have signed that unless the company was over a barrel, which Sony happily took advantage of.
Spider-Man is still Marvel’s character. They just can’t do films. That’s an important distinction. I’d like to see what would happen to the character if Marvel decided to let it go dormant for a decade in all other media.
@14 – thank you. Sony definitely deserves to recoup costs and make some profit on top. No argument. I don’t think it should be 95% of total box office, though.
A bit of accounting knowledge would help in the discussion. It’s as if movies are made without cost.
If Marvel makes 5% of the box office take and has no costs, then they are making far more than 5% of the profits. If Marvel wants 50% of the box office take, and the movie is only a blockbuster, then Sony has to cover all the costs of making and marketing the movie out of the other 50%. If the next SpiderMan movie cost $250 million to make, and an additional $250 million to market, and “only” has box office sales of one billion dollars, Sony makes bupkis. All the profits go to Marvel, and all the risk goes to Sony. That’s not a deal that Sony should sign.
If Marvel is using the 50% as a negotiating ploy, and planning on settling on 10%, they may have screwed up the PR campaign. Perhaps it wasn’t supposed to go public, and now they’re screwed.
@17 “If Marvel makes 5% of the box office take and has no costs”
So really, it depends on who is funding the movie and the marketing. If Marvel is funding it, then they should get a lot more than 5%. If Sony is funding it, then this proposed 50/50 split is way out of line.
So who is funding the movies?
#5: Sony sold more tickets to the first three Raimi Spider-Man movies than (and if you want to do a film by film, the first TWO Raimi movies than the first two Feige produced movies): https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=spiderman.htm
Sony has proven it can made money and, with Spiderverse, make award-winning and critically well-received movies without the MCU characterizations, characters or trappings.
#13, please see, once again: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=spiderman.htm
Also, for #13, Sony coughed up the money for Homecoming and Far From Home, they paid for the marketing, prints, press junkets, advertising, etc. ALL OF IT. So, yes, they do deserve the most money out of the releases. If they movies had bombed, Sony would have been on hook, and Marvel Studios would still have collected their percentage either way. And it’s not like the budget on the film didn’t include a payment for Feige comparable to what he would otherwise be paid as a producer.
Finally, Sony did have creative input, they had their own producers involved. At worse, they deferred a lot to Feige (which they had to, in part, because under the terms of the agreement, they couldn’t propose anything that might have contradicted or contraindicated something planned for the MCU films, which Feige did not have disclose, only say – well, this poses a problem and they [Sony people] would have no rejoinder).
#18, as pointed out above, Sony is paying for the Spider-Man movies, for every single Spider-Man movie that has existed post 2000, they have incurred 100% of the costs. The MCU movies, of course, are paid for by Marvel Studios/Disney but then again, Sony is NOT asking Marvel to give them 50% or even 5% of the box office of THOSE movies just because Spider-Man appears in them….
@19, one more question, then. If Marvel wants a 50/50 split, does that agreement include Marvel paying 50% of all costs?
@20:
Yes, they already split production costs. That part of the deal was reported to have remained the same.
This issue is that Disney wants a TRUE 50/50 split on the ticket sales. The current (expiring) deal is that Disney gets 5% of “first day” ticket sales, and 50% of everything else. I’m assuming “first day” would include the stated release date, and any preview shows (which in Far From Home’s case was two days worth).
As we all know, ticket sales are so front-loaded for these movies, that in the case of Far From Home, it earned nearly 40% of its revenue in that “first day” release window. (Globally)
What Disney is asking for is a really, really large increase in profits. Of course Sony said no. However much they might lose in ticket sales for their next Spidey film NOT being in the MCU, it will be a lot less than the amount Disney is asking for. I mean, Venom made nearly 85% of what Far From Home did.
Disney will come down. They stand to lose far more in raw dollars than Sony does. This deal will get done. Sony wants Feige to produce the movie. They just don’t want to get raked over the coals by Disney in the process.
@19:
Ticket sales meant a lot more to a movie’s bottom line when the Raimi movies came out. Do these figues take into consideration purchased digital copies, streaming rentals, or other non-theatre platforms?
@22:
I think Sony, as the distributor, makes the lion’s share of the “studio” money for the post-theatrical sales. Disney employees such as Feige would still get their producer points on stuff like that.
The bottom line is that Sony bought the rights to Spider-Man twenty years ago. They have the rights to the character in film in perpetuity. They have, quite literally, all the leverage in this negotiation. Disney is going to have to come down on their asking price if they want to use the character. They have zero leverage. As proved by the Venom box office, Sony does not need Spider-Man to be attached to the MCU to make money. And removing Spider-Man from the MCU means they get to build their Spider-Man universe with, you know, Peter Parker in it.
Maybe that means we can finally get a Black Cat movie.
There seems to be a lot of confusion on this thread regarding what the old deal was, at least to my understanding. No one actually knows what the deal was of course, other than the lawyers.
My understanding from reports I’ve read is that it was a 95/5 split of “first day” ticket sales in each market. It was a 50/50 split of the rest of the box office. Disney was getting a lot more than 5% of the Box office receipts.
Further more, Sony hired Marvel Studios to make the films. But we are not privy to the rates that Sony had to pay (if they paid at all, other than in trades and considerations), so we don’t know if they effectively covered all costs, or Marvel cut them a sweetheart deal and absorbed some of the costs of production themselves for the backend consideration in the contract. Sony certainly paid for all of the marketing. And all of the distribution.
And there was a lot of money changing hands from other sources, as well. The Hollywood Reporter has a great breakdown of it.
@25, true, nobody knows what the old deal was. Really, we don’t know what the new deal is either, that Sony refused. I’m guessing that Marvel/Disney hyped the news, as a bargaining chip. And we the fans are playing right into their greedy little hands.
This will resolve one way or the other. I’m pretty sure that Marvel will blink first, and get Spiderman back but without the 50/50. Or maybe they won’t, because they’ve incited the fans. Either way, i’m out.
Aaaaand, like I said @21, Disney will come down:
https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/disneysony-reportedly-making-deal-spiderman-includes-7-films
And if the details are accurate, they are bringing Sony’s SpiderVerse into the MCU.
I don’t know enough about the history here to know who’s really at ‘fault’ here (I’m not going to assume that it’s Sony’s, per se, just because they might have rejected a deal where they got taken advantage of. But I wouldn’t assume they’re not at fault either).
Of course, it could all be a big publicity stunt, too…
Maybe we can have a Night Monkey movie instead ;)