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Dennis Reynolds

Disney and Sony negotiations fall through - Spider-Man to no longer appear in Marvel films

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Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige won’t produce any further Spider-Man films because of an inability by Disney and Sony Pictures to reach new terms that would have given the former a co-financing stake going forward. A dispute that has taken place over the past few months at the top of Disney and Sony has essentially nixed Feige, and the future involvement of Marvel from the Spider-Man universe, sources said.

This comes at a moment when the last two films Kevin Feige produced broke all-time records — Disney’s Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing film of all time, and Spider-Man: Far From Home this week surpassed the James Bond film Skyfallto become the all time highest grossing film for Sony Pictures.

Sources said there are two more Spider-Man films in the works and the studio hopes to have director Jon Watts and Tom Holland front and center, though Watts doesn’t have a deal for the next picture and isn’t a lock to return. That isn’t helped by that fact that, unless something dramatic happens, Feige won’t be the lead creative producer of those pictures.

There is a lot of webbing here, but it all comes down to money, and it’s easy to understand why both sides refused to give ground. Disney asked that future Spider-Man films be a 50/50 co-financing arrangement between the studios, and there were discussions that this might extend to other films in the Spider-Man universe. Sony turned that offer down flat. Sources said that Sony, led by Tom Rothman and Tony Vinciquerra, came back with other configurations, but Disney didn’t want to do that. But Sony did not want to share its biggest franchise. Sure Disney would be putting up half the funding, but the risk is in how much you are going to make back in profit. Disney wasn’t at all interested in continuing the current terms where Marvel receives in the range of 5% of first dollar gross, sources said.

Now, it’s easy to say that Feige has enough on his plate, especially after taking control of the X-Men universe in the Fox acquisition, including the Deadpool franchise, along with architecting the next phase of the Marvel superhero universe and building movies and shows for Disney +. But 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.

Essentially this means that Sony will have to try to win a championship without Michael Jordan. After all, Feige’s first decade at Marvel is largely unblemished and his consistency has been nothing short of historic: even George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson haven’t seen everything turn into a hit, and so maybe only James Cameron has the success record that Feige has achieved. But Feige has done it all in the last 10 years, producing and overseeing 23 superheros, with not a flop in the bunch.  They’ve all been number one openers that have collectively grossed $26.8 billion. Feige this year became the producer of the top grossing film ever for two studios — Sony and Disney — and he produced three of the top four highest grossing films this year in Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far From Home. This after scoring the first ever Best Picture Oscar nom for a superhero film last year with Black Panther. I can’t think of a Hollywood producer/executive who has done anything close to this.

And the launch of the new iteration of Spider-Man was done brilliantly with Marvel’s support and help. It has been a boon to both studios. Tom Holland’s character was introduced in the Joe & Anthony Russo-directed 2016 blockbuster Captain America: Civil War, the film that set up the two record breaking Avengers films. Sony’s first rebooted Spidey film, 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, rode that Marvel wave and grossed $880 million worldwide, and then the webslinger was a key character in the two Avengers films, leading to the Spidey sequel that this week became Sony’s top grossing film ever.

Sources said Disney’s top brass for the past several months has sought new terms for Feige and the Marvel cross-pollination to continue. As the Spider-Man relationship grew, Feige and Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman spoke about the possibility of a wider involvement in the Sony-controlled Spider-man universe, which contains 900 characters.

It is understandable that the fiscally shrewd Rothman would balk at giving up half of Sony’s biggest franchise to Marvel. After all, Marvel already owns the merchandising on Spider-Man. Does the Mouse really need half of the movie universe also? Sony so far has decided that as valuable as Feige is, Disney is asking too high a price.

Sources said that Sony reasoned that they will be fine, without Feige. The creative template has been set on the Spider-Man films, and Watt and Holland are in place along with Amy Pascal, who became producer with Feige after she exited the executive suite after presiding over the previous Spider-man iterations directed by Sam Raimi and Marc Webb as Sony Pictures chief. And sources note that Venom was a problem picture and far from the polished product that grossed $856 million worldwide, until Rothman himself spent a good long time in the editing room helping to get it there.

 

https://deadline.com/2019/08/kevin-feige-spider-man-franchise-exit-disney-sony-dispute-avengers-endgame-captain-america-winter-soldier-tom-rothman-bob-iger-1202672545/

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So, basically, short version - the deal as it existed was up and went it came time to renegotiate, Disney now wanted 50% of all profits made from the films, and Sony was so appalled by that they didn't even counter offer.

 

Kind of surprised by this, but hey, whatever really. I'd say that five movies with one character ain't bad, but frankly I think this will be resolved inside of a year and you will in fact see Spider-Man in Marvel films again. Hopefully with Disney eating as much crow as possible ala James Gunn controversy.

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Myself and everyone else on Twitter was ready to storm the Sony headquarters.

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Frankly the entire situation is unfortunate and yes Disney is absolutely being greedy BUT Disney is to be credited with lending support to the SpiderMan films and allowed for them to get a billion dollar movie. It's a shame because Tom Holland is such a PHENOMENAL actor in that role.

But hopefully the negotiation will be resolved in the future but Sony may have to bow down to King Kevin Feige.

 

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The Amazing Spiderman franchise is panned critically and it made MUCH less than the spiderman movies with Marvel.

When will these executives understand that the reasons these supeheroes movies are popular bcuz of the brand Marvel build more so than the superhero himself.

Marvel funded some of the movie's production and they still gave almost all of the revenue money to Sony. I guess now they will have to deal with funding and receiving less profits good job lol3

But anyway Spiderman isn't that interesting of a superhero though. I'm more excited for Xmen and now that Marvel has access to them it will be amazing.

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13 hours ago, Gravity said:

The Amazing Spiderman franchise is panned critically and it made MUCH less than the spiderman movies with Marvel.

When will these executives understand that the reasons these supeheroes movies are popular bcuz of the brand Marvel build more so than the superhero himself.

Marvel funded some of the movie's production and they still gave almost all of the revenue money to Sony. I guess now they will have to deal with funding and receiving less profits good job lol3

But anyway Spiderman isn't that interesting of a superhero though. I'm more excited for Xmen and now that Marvel has access to them it will be amazing.

They should leave X-men alone after delivering such disappointing movies like Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix trash1

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6 minutes ago, Lucifer's Angel said:

They should leave X-men alone after delivering such disappointing movies like Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix trash1

Those movies were made by Fox. 

Fox has been bought by Disney which means now that Marvel has access to the them. Marvel will definitely reboot the franchise and make much better movies based on their track record. At least I hope.

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2 minutes ago, Gravity said:

Those movies were made by Fox. 

Fox has been bought by Disney which means now that Marvel has access to the them. Marvel will definitely reboot the franchise and make much better movies based on their track record. At least I hope.

Oh wow that's awesome,  X-men r my fav superheros ever and they deserve justice cry6

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It seems to me that the kind of people who watch superhero films will still go and see them regardless of who stars in it, who it's made by, what it's called, how critically panned it is etc. etc. So does it really matter?

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4 hours ago, Modern Woman said:

It seems to me that the kind of people who watch superhero films will still go and see them regardless of who stars in it, who it's made by, what it's called, how critically panned it is etc. etc. So does it really matter?

I don't know, maybe? For me, at a certain point I see myself as being "in too deep", so to speak, and I'll go see some movies whether or not I think they look very good (I don't really care about reviews/box office success - Hellboy from earlier this year gagged in both respects and I liked that movie). I found the last Spider-Man movie pretty disappointing, but yeah, I'll probably see the next one no matter what because the price of a ticket is worth satiating my curiosity. But a lot of people probably don't feel the same way - whether it's enough to really matter, yeah, not sure.

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19 hours ago, Dennis Reynolds said:

I don't know, maybe? For me, at a certain point I see myself as being "in too deep", so to speak, and I'll go see some movies whether or not I think they look very good (I don't really care about reviews/box office success - Hellboy from earlier this year gagged in both respects and I liked that movie). I found the last Spider-Man movie pretty disappointing, but yeah, I'll probably see the next one no matter what because the price of a ticket is worth satiating my curiosity. But a lot of people probably don't feel the same way - whether it's enough to really matter, yeah, not sure.

"Satiating"... I'm moist giveup2

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