On Monday evening, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios made an announcement that left every Marvel fanboy bursting with joy. They had reached a deal about the cinematic future of Spider-man. Sony Pictures is allowing Marvel to feature Spider-man in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), where he will share a world with the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy.
For those not familiar with the behind the scenes stories of the Marvel movies, Marvel, while the creators of Spider-man, don’t actually own the film rights to him. In the 1990’s, when the company was practically bankrupt, they sold the movie rights of their most popular character to make some much needed money. Sony Pictures bought the rights and has been making the movies since. Marvel got back on their feet in 2008 with movies from their own studio, but they haven’t been able to feature their iconic character, having to instead work with B-list characters like Captain America, Thor, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. Until now.
Of course, this means that Spider-man will have to be rebooted yet again. The recent Amazing Spider-man series, has earned much of it's unpopularity due to the franchise being rebooted so soon after the original trilogy, while it was still fresh in the viewer's minds. . However, this time, the news of a reboot is met with a far more positive reaction due to it meaning Spider-man is finally joining his fellow heroes on the big screen and viewers being secure in the knowledge that the fresh insight from Marvel will mean a new style of filmmaking from a company that understands the character better than anyone else could. A reboot means a new continuity and cast for the character, but the clean slate will allow Marvel to take the new films in an entirely new direction. They'll skip over the origin story (retelling it for a third time will test movie viewer's patience) and dive straight into Spider-man's established life as crime fighting superhero.
Reports say that the new Spider-man will make his MCU debut in Captain America: Civil War, a movie featuring the superhero community being torn in two as Iron Man and Captain America butt heads, with other heroes choosing sides. In the original comic book storyline the movie is based off of, Spider-man played a key role. The new deal makes it possible for Spider-man to be involved in the movie version of the story as well. After his cameo in this movie, he will star in a brand new trilogy of stand alone movies. The first of these is said to roll around 2017, a mere 2 years from now.
Sony Pictures, which has owned the movie rights to the character and made all the movies to date. will still have financial control over the project and will earn a cut of the profit. Their movies based off the wall crawler have earned much criticism and their weak films have also made low box office numbers. In their hands, they bungled up Marvel's flagship hero to the point where he was making less box office revenue than B-list character like the Guardians of the Galaxy. In Marvel's hands, though, Spider-man will finally get the proper big screen treatment he deserves.
The one negative aspect of this news is the loss of Andrew Garfield as Spider-man. While the movies were criticized, his performance as Spider-man was praised. Whoever will be replacing him will have a lot to live up to.
The web slinger has had a rough ride on the big screen, but under Marvel's care, he will finally give us the movie we've been waiting for. Welcome home, Spidey.
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