Spider-Man is headed back to Sony, and the guys who helped bring him into the Marvel
Cinematic Universe are disappointed, but not surprised.
During a recent conversation with The Daily Beast, Avengers: Endgame directors Joe and
Anthony Russo shared their thoughts on the web-slinger's unceremonious exit from the
biggest film franchise in history.
The pair related that while they and Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige had been absolutely
driven to bring Spidey into their universe, the shared custody deal with Sony was an extremely
difficult one to get done, so difficult that negotiations to extend it falling apart didn't
register to them as being terribly surprising.
Peter Parker appeared in the MCU for the first time in the Russo Brothers' second Marvel
flick: Captain America: Civil War.
From the beginning of the project's development, the directors were adamant that the story
should include Spider-Man, despite the obvious stumbling block of Sony holding the film rights.
Anthony Russo said,
"We were extremely passionate about it.
This is something we really wanted to happen, and fought a long time internally at Marvel
to make it happen."
There were, of course, contingencies in the very likely event that a deal wouldn't be
struck.
Black Panther, who was also introduced in Civil War, would have had his role greatly
expanded in the event that Spidey couldn't come out to play, and several other narrative
elements would have been different as well.
The movie's script went through several iterations as all of the involved parties were attempting
to reach an agreement, and poor Feige was right in the middle of it all, attempting
to juggle the creative and business sides of his job in a way that he hadn't been asked
to do before.
Joe Russo said,
"Kevin went through a lot.
There were a lot of ups and downs, and he kept walking into our office and we'd go,
'Look, we've got to do it with [Sony],' and he'd go, 'OK, I'll figure it out,' and walk
back into his.
He was looking for the way out.
He wanted to open that door and have us go, 'We figured it out!
We don't need Spider-Man!' because it's a lot of work to get two major corporations
to play nice with each other, and the fact that it happened at all, we should all be
dancing and celebrating that we got that little bit of time."
Anthony Russo agreed, saying,
"I think that's why Joe and I are not so devastated or surprised that there's been a falling out,
because it was so hard to make it happen in the first place."
The Russos make an excellent point; the fact that we got two solo and three team-up adventures
featuring Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is in itself a minor miracle.
But this doesn't do much to ease the broken hearts of the franchise's fans, who had wanted
Tom Holland's Peter Parker to stick around in the MCU for just a little longer.
"I don't want to go, I don't want to go, sir, please!
Please, I don't want to go.
I don't want to go."
The matter, though, appears to have been settled.
Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra threw cold water on any remaining dreams fans
might have with remarks he recently made at Variety's Entertainment and Technology Summit,
saying, quote, "For the moment the door is closed."
Vinciquerra also expressed the extremely optimistic view that Spider-Man will do "just fine" in
the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters, without help from Marvel Studios.
Because, sure!
Who needs the Avengers when you have Morbius and Silver Sable?
"What is this place?!"
To be fair, Venom did do pretty darn well at the box office, although it got nowhere
near the critical love that even the worst-received MCU films have.
We suppose it'll be cool to see Tom Hardy's Eddie Brock and Holland's Peter Parker squaring
off, but let's face facts: after the debacle that was the rebooted Amazing Spider-Man series,
it was obvious that Sony had completely lost its way with Spidey.
The MCU resurrected his box office fortunes, giving Sony Pictures, which reaped all the
profits from web-head's MCU-set solo adventures, not only its top-performing Spider-Man film,
but the highest-grossing flick in its history with the wall-crawler's MCU swan song, Spider-Man:
Far From Home.
Fans may love Holland, but it's hard to imagine his next appearance in the Sony Universe of
Marvel Characters will resonate the same way his appearances in the MCU have.
And who knows how Marvel will have to change things up now that they don't have Spider-man
around?
"I don't think Tony would have done what he did if he didn't know that you were going
to be here after he was gone."
Of course, there's still time for Sony to come to its senses and invite Mighty Marvel
back to the bargaining table, but at the moment, it appears that the studio is intent on learning
what fans don't want, the hard way.
Again.
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