Spider-Man May No Longer Be Part Of The Marvel Cinematic Universe
In last year’s Avengers: Infinity War, Tony Stark sarcastically welcomed Spider-Man to the Avengers. But if a report from Deadline is to be believed, Tom Holland’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man may not be part of the team anymore. In fact, he may not be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe anymore, either.
Spider-Man and all of the Avengers are all part of the Marvel Comics Universe. But in 1999, Marvel — which was not yet owned by Disney — sold the rights to Spider-Man to Sony Pictures. Sony produced a trilogy of films starred Tobey Maguire in the title role — Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007). They rebooted the character with Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man with The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). The Maguire films were part of an early wave of super-hero films that led to the current boom that the genre has experienced over the past decade. The Garfield films were generally viewed as a disappointment by fans.
The current iteration of the character, played by Tom Holland, was introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Captain America: Civil War in 2016, after negotiations between Disney and Sony. His story continued in 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming (a Sony film, which prominently featured Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark/Iron Man and Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, connecting it to the Marvel Cinematic Universe), 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, and then this year’s Avengers: Endgame. After Endgame, Spider-Man: Far From Home dealt directly with the aftermath of Endgame, and featured Happy Hogan, as well as MCU characters Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders).
But Deadline reports that “because of an inability by Disney and Sony Pictures to reach new terms that would have given the former a co-financing stake going forward,” Spider-Man is not likely to be part of the MCU anymore; that would also mean that no characters from the MCU would appear in subsequent Spider-Man films.
Disney’s Avengers: Endgame is the highest-grossing film of all time, while Spider-Man: Far From Home just surpassed the James Bond film Skyfall to become Sony’s highest-grossing film ever.
