Spider-Man Is All Over The Web Today
Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures have at long last settled on terms concerning the future of Stan Lee’s most famous hero, Spider-Man. Up to this point, Sony has had exclusive rights to the use of the character on film, which has prevented the wall crawler from appearing alongside his fellow Avengers on the big screen. But after the poor reception to last summer’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” combined with major financial issues resulting from the highly publicized SONY hack late last year leading up to the release of “The Interview,” the two entities have reached an agreement.
This is what the agreement means, in a nutshell:
- There will NOT be an “Amazing Spider-Man 3,” and Andrew Garfield will not be reprising the role. We will get a new Spider-Man, although we will not be seeing yet another version of the origin story.
- While Spidey will obviously not be appearing in this summer’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” he will almost certainly be a major part of the the third film in the biggest movie franchise in the history of comics.
- Before SONY releases a new stand alone Spider-Man film in 2017, the character will be appearing in a MARVEL Studios release, and speculation and simple logic tell us that that will almost certainly be 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War,” which is already bringing together Cap and Iron Man, facing off over a disagreement on issues of National Security measures. But the MARVEL Comics “Civil War” series features Spider-Man in a major way, and it would be the perfect way to introduce the webslinger into the larger MARVEL Universe.
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The biggest losers in this announcement? Is it Garfield, who has lost his role in the franchise? Not really. He’s got other projects lined up, including Martin Scorsese’s “Silence”with Liam Neeson, and may benefit from being freed to do more serious Oscar bait. Is it Marc Webb, director of the last two films? It’s definitely not going to help his career momentum, but Webb has proven much more adept at telling smaller stories like “(500) Days of Summer,” and hopefully the end of this incarnation will lead to him being put on a project better suited to him.
The biggest loser is actually DC Comics and Warner Bros., who are banking heavily on “Batman Vs. Superman: The Rise of Justice,” which pairs the two heroes (played by Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill) on the big screen for the first time ever, in the fight to end all fights. But if MARVEL, who already stole more than a little bit of that thunder with the announcement of Captain American Vs. Iron Man, is able to throw Spider-Man into the mix as well, the movie that DC is pinning everything on may very well be overshadowed. And with MARVEL managing the impossible by making a bottom tier title like “Guardians of the Galaxy” a bigger box office hit than “Man of Steel,” DC is decidedly settling into second place in the world of comic book movies.
One thing is certain: the onslaught of superhero based films is not going to slow down any time soon.
