MCU fans have had several days to get used to the idea that Spider-Man is out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the time being, with Sony and
The Spider-Man saga turned out to be the enormous elephant in the room over the weekend, just as Disney’s huge D23 Expo event got underway, so we heard more official comments on the matter from the key players involved with these films.
Sony and
Spider-Man 3 production may have already started, the same report says, with Far From Home writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers already working on the next installment. But Sony can’t count on Watts for the time being to direct. Marvel and Kevin Feige want the director to continue working with them, although it’s unclear what his MCU projects might be.
Deadline revealed more inside details about what went wrong between the two companies:
I continue to hear from reliable sources that the notion Feige was too busy to do more Spider-Man films just doesn’t hold water; he loves the character and the way those movies served the fans and the Marvel Universe. I continue to hear that
Disney asked for a 25% stake where it would finance that much of the movie and receive that much of the equity upside. This arrangement would only have been for any pictures that involved Marvel and Feige.
When having to comment on the matter publicly, Marvel’s president was as diplomatic about the matter as you’d expect him to be.
“I’m feeling about Spider-Man gratitude and joy,” Feige told Entertainment Weekly. “We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we’d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and I’ll always be thankful for that.”
EW also spoke with Tom Holland, who has played Spider-Man/Peter Parker in five movies so far, and the actor confirmed that he’d continue to do so, regardless of what’s coming next.
“We’ve made five great movies,” he said. “It’s been five amazing years. I’ve had the time of my life. Who knows what the future holds? But all I know is that I’m going to continue playing Spider-Man and having the time of my life. It’s going to be so fun, however we choose to do it. The future for Spider-Man will be different, but it will be equally as awesome and amazing, and we’ll find new ways to make it even cooler.”
Holland also spoke at Keystone Comic Con in Philadelphia about the future of Spider-Man, per ComicBook, teasing “bigger and better” things. “It’s really exciting, the ideas we have for how we can expand the Spider-Man world and bring new characters into it, and crossover with other people, it’s really exciting,” he said. “And it’s only going to get bigger and better from here, which is great.”
What else could Holland say, given that the failed Sony-
With McKenna, Sommers, and Holland already confirmed for the next sequel, all that Sony might need for another blockbuster is Watts and Feige. No matter what Sony thinks it can do on its own with the character, the fact remains that Homecoming and Far From Home became these huge hits for Sony because they were part of something much bigger than anything Sony could have pulled off on its own.
There’s no telling when Spider-Man 3 will launch, even though plans are well underway. And a Sony-
