It may not be a cameo by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, but Sony has delivered a pretty hefty Spider-Man twist! It appears Marvel Studios will produce three additional Spider-Man flicks in association with Sony. It was widely speculated that Spider-Man: No Way Home would effectively remove Tom Holland’s web-slinger from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and set up a future Spidey franchise that would be completely under the control of Sony.
Sony executive Amy Pascal, who not only produced all three Tom Holland movies but the two Venom installments, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and the upcoming Kraven the Hunter, stated:
“This is not the last movie that we are going to make with Marvel – [this is not] the last Spider-Man movie. We are getting ready to make the next Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland and Marvel, it just isn’t part of… We’re thinking of this as three films, and now we’re going to go onto the next three. This is not the last of our MCU movies.”
Now, Pascal is not always on the same page as others involved with these movies. You may recall an awkward co-interview with her and Kevin Feige in which she seemed to imply that Venom and other upcoming Sony Spider-Verse films would somehow still be connected to the MCU in which Feige seemed to react by staring off into space. (Venom was clearly NOT set within the MCU and didn’t reference Spider-Man at all.)
Also, there is the line where she states: “We are getting ready to make the next Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland and Marvel, it just isn’t part of…” Part of… what?! The MCU?! Not part of the Sony Spider-Verse? There’s no way to know what she was going to say before she cut herself off. So that cast a little doubt on things.
Sony announced that it was breaking ties with Disney and Marvel Studios in 2019 and that it would solely produce any upcoming Spider-Man movies. This was prior to Spider-Man: No Way Home even beginning production and fans were outraged that Sony would pull such a move before this initial “trilogy” was even completed. Though we don’t know what went on behind closed doors, it seems clear that the huge vocal outrage from fans convinced Sony to renegotiate to keep Tom Holland in the MCU for the time being.
But after the success of Venom and now Venom: Let There Be Carnage, it seemed that Sony had established that it could make Spider-hits without Disney. And now that their second agreement with Marvel is almost at an end, many simply assumed that Sony would make its move and take Spider-Man back strictly in-house and possibly use the character to bridge films like Venom, Morbius, and Kraven.
Now Marvel could surely do just fine without Spider-Man, but cracks are starting to show. Eternals received poor critical reviews and the Disney+ shows have not been completely embraced by all fans. With the loss of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man, Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers/Captain America, and Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, not to mention Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa/Black Panther (R.I.P.), Marvel Studios could use a beloved icon that fans truly rally around. Sure, there is still Thor, but fans have not embraced Doctor Strange, Ant-Man, Captain Marvel, etc. in ways that put them in the same league as the departed characters/actors.
We’ll have to wait and see how Spider-Man: No Way Home turns out and perhaps well beyond that to see what the future holds for Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. But for now, does the idea of more MCU Spidey movies give you a “Peter Tingle?”
Spider-Man: No Way Home opens on December 17.
