Weeks on from the initial reports, and the Spider-Man situation remains the same – the deal between Marvel Studios and Sony has broken down, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker is set to continue outside the continuity of the MCU, and Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige won’t be overseeing the wall-crawler’s next adventure. Despite fans’ hopes that the impasse might be overcome, it seems Sony is doubling down on carving its own future for its flagship superhero.
Speaking at Variety’s Entertainment and Technology summit, Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vincinquerra confirmed that “for the moment the door is closed” on Spidey’s MCU return. “We had a great run with [Kevin Feige] on Spider-Man movies,” he said. “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.”
He added: “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. I think we’re pretty capable of doing what we have to do here.” It’s a confident line from the studio boss – Sony clearly believes that following the box office success of Venom and the widespread acclaim for the Oscar-winning Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse, it can spin its own compelling web of spider stories.
While Sony say the door is closed, director Jon Favreau – one of the architects of the MCU as the filmmaker behind Iron Man and Iron Man 2, who also starred as Happy Hogan in Homecoming and Far From Home – still has hope. “I’ve been talking to everybody about it… I’m cautiously optimistic,” he said at Variety’s 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 a way for us all to play together going forward.”
Stay tuned for more as the tangled web continues to develop.