There's more to Spider-Man leaving the MCU than meets the eye
Not all is well in the Marvel Cinematic Universe today with the news that Spider-Man will no longer be part of the MCU following a breakdown in talks between Disney and Sony over the rights to the web-slinger.
A quick refresh of why a deal needs to be struck: Disney owns the merchandising rights to Spider-Man as well as 5% of first-dollar gross (the money the movie makes on its opening day) but not the film rights. Sony, under the terms of a deal made many, many years ago, finances the movies and also reaps most of the financial reward for their success.
Previously, the companies came to a limited-term agreement to share rights so that Spider-man could participate in Disney's MCU movies. That has now expired.
According to Deadline, Disney's renegotiations entailed giving the Mouse House a 50/50 split of both financing and profit. This is understandably hard for Sony to swallow considering Spider-Man: Far From Home is the studio's highest-grossing movie of all time.
But before we begin to collectively weep and scratch our heads in confusion as to how the MCU is going to continue without Iron-Man's protégé, there is a more cynical view of the public outcry to take into consideration.
Shrewd though it may seem, Disney may be counting on its dedicated fans to do, well, exactly what they're doing: put Sony under pressure to come back to the table and accept if not the 50/50 deal, then something similar.
In its defence, Sony released a series of tweets laying most of the blame at Disney's feet. But fans don't seem to care or are convinced that Sony is still the one to blame.
There is already a Facebook group planning a storming of the Sony headquarters. Boycotts and petitions are being created and the ensuing social-media storm has not been pretty.
A source told Variety that, though talks are not ongoing, "a deal might still be reached between Disney and Sony." In a nutshell, by stepping away from the table, Disney could be trying to leverage their impressive fanbase against Sony to get a bigger slice of the pie.
Getting more profits from stand-alone Spider-man movies is surely a prize worth working for, for both studios. Sony is reportedly working on two more stand-alone Spider-Man films starring Tom Holland, but due to the talks' breakdown, Marvel producer Kevin Feige won't be involved with them.
This throws into question how future Spider-Man movies will handle his relationship to Tony Stark, Nick Fury and the rest of the Avengers. And how Marvel will manage without Tom Holland's Peter Parker, who has become integral to the future of the MCU.
A post shared by Jeremy Renner (@renner4real) on Aug 20, 2019 at 7:16pm PDT
Variety reported that Disney expressed concerns over Feige being spread too thin with all the upcoming Marvel films and shows on Disney+. This altruism doesn't quite ring true since Disney's – and Sony's – ultimate goal (like any mega-media company) is making money.
As Deadline's Mike Fleming Jr wrote: "I’m told Feige loves Spider-Man, arguably the biggest superhero character in the Marvel canon. He would have continued if Disney and Sony could have reached new deal terms."
So, are we all being manipulated and having our broken hearts and anger weaponised in the bigger scheming behind closed doors? Maybe. In fact, hopefully! Because if there's one group of people who won't be ignored it's heartbroken angry fanboys and girls with Twitter accounts.
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