Spider-Man not returning to the MCU, at least “for the moment”

Marvel fans the world over were flabbergasted when they learned that Spider-Man — or at least, the version of him as played by Tom Holland — would no longer be appearing in movies set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Holland may still play the character onscreen, but there’ll be no more interaction with other characters from the MCU, no more grappling with Peter Parker’s feelings about the death of Tony Stark, no more cross-pollination of any kind. That could awkward for Marvel, since Holland’s Spider-Man was being set up as a major part of the next phase of the MCU.

This happened because Sony, which owns the film rights to Spider-Man, couldn’t come to a new agreement with Disney under which the character could be shared. But deals can be undone, right? Ever since the announcement, fans have hoped that the companies might reverse course and play nice, with people like MCU mainstay Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man, Happy in the movies) keeping hope alive. “I’m cautiously optimistic,” Favreau said in a keynote conversation at Variety’s Entertainment and Technology summit. “I think it’s a long way away and I think the collaboration has been really strong up to this point so I’m hopeful that there’s away for us all to play together going forward.”

So that’s the glass-half-full view. Speaking at the same summit, Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra was a little less rosy, but only just. “[F]or the moment the door is closed,” he said.

"We had a great run with [Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige] on Spider-Man movies. We tried to see if there’s a way to work it out….the Marvel people are terrific people, we have great respect for them, but on the other hand we have some pretty terrific people of our own. Kevin didn’t do all the work."

At the moment, Sony’s plan is to go ahead with its own Spider-Man cinematic universe — it’s already working on a sequel to the 2018 hit Venom, is making a movie revolving around the character of Morbius, and is planning “five or six” TV series set in the Spider-Man universe. And let’s not forget that they scored a hit with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse last year. “Spider-Man was fine before the event movies, did better with the event movies, and now that we have our own universe, he will play off the other characters as well,” Vinciquerra said. “I think we’re pretty capable of doing what we have to do here.”

But none of this forecloses the possibility that Tom Holland’s Spider-Man could still return to the MCU at some time in the future. We all heard how Vinciquerra qualified his comment with “for the moment” up there. He also added, “it’s a long life,” whatever that means.

If I had to guess, I’d say that Vinciquerra intends to let Marvel use Spider-Man again at some point and is just waiting for Disney to offer him a better deal; this whole thing started because Disney asked for a bigger share of profits from individual Spider-Man movies (as opposed to MCU movies where Spider-Man is just a supporting character) and Sony said no. Vinciquerra clarified that Sony Studios is “not for sale,” so Disney can’t solve its problem by buying them up like it did with 20th Century Fox.

Personally, I think whatever it takes to get Holland back into the MCU is worth doing. I say we throw a pizza party for Disney and Sony execs until they’re full and happy and agree to work together again.

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