Spider-Man joins the MCU

[SaintRidley]

Check out Marvel's announcement.

io9's Meredith Woerner gets to the important bits right away:

=Meredith Woerner]Marvel just announced that Spider-Man will appear in an unspecified Marvel film, that takes place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Then after this "appearance":

"Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal.... Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.

In addition, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, and Inhumans have been pushed back a half a year (Nov. 3, 2017, July 6, 2018, Nov. 2, 2018, and July 12, 2019, respectively).


So, what do we want to see from this?

I'm personally hoping we get Peter cameoing in one of the upcoming - say Cap 3 - and then we get his own movie afterward, in which he dies and we get the MCU's own Spider-Man, a kid named Miles Morales. Boom. Baggage from previous iterations of the Spider-Man franchise are pretty well dropped except for what Marvel would like to cherry-pick for the MCU, and we get Miles Morales on the big screen.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'm personally hoping we get Peter cameoing in one of the upcoming - say Cap 3 - and then we get his own movie afterward, in which he dies and we get the MCU's own Spider-Man, a kid named Miles Morales. Boom. Baggage from previous iterations of the Spider-Man franchise are pretty well dropped except for what Marvel would like to cherry-pick for the MCU, and we get Miles Morales on the big screen.

Miles is not only my hope, but he's my pick for "best bet". Having a Spiderman who isn't Peter Parker is probably just the sort of distinction they need to come with an agreement with Sony. Plus, it fits with Marvel's current very public moves to diversify the cast of their comics, and it wouldn't be the first time they pulled from the Ultimate-verse.

[Seerow]

I'm mostly worried by Sony maintaining creative control. I hope it works out well (and did this hit early enough to get Spidey in for Civil War?), but I kind of expect the cooperation to breakdown somewhere along the line when Sony and Marvel can't agree on some major point, Sony puts their foot down, and it screws up Marvel's larger picture plans.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Seems like a pretty smart thing to do from a business angle. Now that the groundwork has been laid for deals like this, they'll probably do the same thing for the X-men.

Repeat ad naseum until every superhero movie is in the same universe. Or until the bubble bursts.

[LadyEowyn]

Since Sony (and a lot of other people) seem to regard Marvel's films as a lot more successful, and what Sony wants most is to make a lot of money off of Spider-Man, I suspect they'll largely be willing to listen to Marvel's ideas of what to do with the film.

(In fact, ASM1 made more money than Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and ASM2 made about the same domestically as Thor: The Dark World, and significantly more globally. Both of those are regarded as financial successes, so it's not clear why the Spider-Man films are regarded as unsuccessful, except that Sony hoped they would make even more money than they did. ASM2 was a bad movie, true, but so was Thor 2. And ASM 1 was good.)

I'm disappointed that Marvel is bumping back the Black Panther and Captain Marvel movies, but I'm still interested to see what they do with Spider-Man. Sorry to lose Garfield, though, he did a good job of the part.

[Talakeal]

Oh boy! If Spider Man is in Civil War then maybe they could follow it up by bringing One More Day to the big screen! Actually, as messed up as the Spider Man continuity already is with all the reboots and retcons, a deal with the devil might be just what we need...

On a serious note, did they actually say for sure they were recasting Spider Man? I personally thought that Garfield was a vast improvement over Maguire, one of the few positive changes in the reboots. Seriously, why did they feel a need to do a reboot so quickly?

Honestly, I think if they had just recast Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter and MJ* and then used the Lizard, Electro, and Rhino plots as Spider Man 4 and 5 without trying to redo the Spider Man and Green Goblin origin stories they would have a great series. Heck, they could still use the setup for Sinister Six and Black Cat movies more or less unaltered. And its not like they are running out of villains anytime soon (Kraven, Carnage, Vulture, Mysterio, Hobgoblin, Scorpion, Chameleon just off the top of my head) even without resorting to B listers or resurrecting / reusing old villains.


*Does anyone else find it kind of funny that they had the blond Kirsten Dunst die her hair red to play Mary Jane and the redhead Emma Stone die her hair blonde to play Gwen Stacey?

[Soras Teva Gee]

Well looks like Sony can read the writing on the wall and has decided they have enough problems.

This is happening because Amazing 2 with a mere $200 mil domestic box office with a reported $200 mil budget, even that nice (but much less profitable) international return puts this at more break even and Sony possibly lost money. And perhaps even more importantly the franchise is diminishing with each film.

When your latest faire is under half the gross of the original its time to stop digging.

[RoboChap]

I can picture the Age of Ultron post credits scene now:

A first person view of someone flicking through some excellent action photos of The Avengers saving the day. Suddenly, the photos are thrown across the room and we scroll up to JK Simmons, foaming at the mouth and screaming at the new Spider-Man actor "Parker, what is this trash?! Nobody wants to see photos of these goody goody heroes! We need pictures of that wallcrawling menace! Bring me pictures of Spider-Man, or you're fired!"

Ok, so probably not, but I would love to see JKS back as JJJ...

[lord_khaine]

When your latest faire is under half the gross of the original its time to stop digging.

Hmm.. i guess repeatedly churning out rebooted Spiderman movies, as well as stiff competition from the remaining Marvel universe have taken a large bite out of the Spiderman gross..?

[Seerow]

I can picture the Age of Ultron post credits scene now:

A first person view of someone flicking through some excellent action photos of The Avengers saving the day. Suddenly, the photos are thrown across the room and we scroll up to JK Simmons, foaming at the mouth and screaming at the new Spider-Man actor "Parker, what is this trash?! Nobody wants to see photos of these goody goody heroes! We need pictures of that wallcrawling menace! Bring me pictures of Spider-Man, or you're fired!"

Ok, so probably not, but I would love to see JKS back as JJJ...

JKS is the best JJJ.

[LadyEowyn]

Hmm.. i guess repeatedly churning out rebooted Spiderman movies, as well as stiff competition from the remaining Marvel universe have taken a large bite out of the Spiderman gross..?

Every successive Spider-Man movie has made less money than the previous one (domestically): Spider-Man $404 mil., Spider-Man 2 $374 mil., Spider-Man 3 $337 mil., ASM1 $262 mil., and ASM2 $203 mil.

Since those are still pretty good numbers for a blockbuster, I think another part of it is that Sony's production costs are out of control, even for a superhero movie. According to Box Office Mojo, Spider-Man 3 cost $258 mil., and ASM1 cost $230 mil.; in each case, that's more than the cost of The Avengers. Nonetheless, all the Spider-Man movies have made tons of money worldwide (ASM2 is the lowest at $709), so Sony's got to have pretty terrible business management to not be making substantial money off the franchise.

I'm disappointed that they're dropping Garfield, as he's been a very good Spider-Man (much better than Tobey MacGuire, in my opinion), but I heard that they were dropping him regardless as he'd made some negative public comments about Sony's involvement in the making of ASM2:

It’s interesting. I read a lot of the reactions from people and I had to stop because I could feel I was getting away from how I actually felt about it. For me, I read the script that Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci] wrote, and I genuinely loved it. There was this thread running through it. I think what happened was, through the pre-production, production, and post-production, when you have something that works as a whole, and then you start removing portions of it—because there was even more of it than was in the final cut, and everything was related. Once you start removing things and saying, “No, that doesn’t work,” then the thread is broken, and it’s hard to go with the flow of the story. Certain people at the studio had problems with certain parts of it, and ultimately the studio is the final say in those movies because they’re the tentpoles, so you have to answer to those people.

[Jayngfet]

Honestly I'm not super thrilled about this. Peter being out of Marvel's hands is the only reason we got Guardians of the Galaxy instead of another Spiderman sequel. Now that they can use the character a lot of their second and third tier franchises are going to be pushed back to make room.

Additionally, there's still all that stuff they can't use. The Fantastic Four were a huge part of Peter's early comics and Johnny Storm is one of his best friends. A truly integrated Spider-Man can't really happen and he's not nearly as good friends with the people he's hanging out with now.

[Kitten Champion]

I didn't hate Sony's Amazing Spider-Man reboot like some, but the feeling that the films were being held back - being merely mediocre - by the obtrusive franchise management strategies of the studio was somewhat palpable. I'm especially sick of seeing Kurtzman and Orci attached to film projects I'd normally be interested in, they're far too lazy as screenwriters.

I earnestly hope it's Miles Morales they use. I could list the reasons why, but top among them is that after 5 movies I simply can't bring myself to care about another Peter Parker story.

[t209]

I didn't hate Sony's Amazing Spider-Man reboot like some, but the feeling that the films were being held back - being merely mediocre - by the obtrusive franchise management strategies of the studio was somewhat palpable. I'm especially sick of seeing Kurtzman and Orci attached to film projects I'd normally be interested in, they're far too lazy as screenwriters.

I earnestly hope it's Miles Morales they use. I could list the reasons why, but top among them is that after 5 movies I simply can't bring myself to care about another Peter Parker story.

Either they kill of peter or Tobey Macguire as a cameo, who would play as Peter Parker who retired after having kid with MJ like combination of Ultimate and MC2 (definitely would not happen since Joe Q's still in the movie department).
On the opinion on Black Panther/T'Challa, I hope they didn't portray his country as the only utopia in Africa (which the writers wouldn't know about relatively stable countries other than South Africa, probably the ones made by Blokamp).

[Calemyr]

JKS is the best JJJ.

That's slander!

JJJ: No, it's not! I take offense to that! In print, it's libel.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I'm mostly worried by Sony maintaining creative control. I hope it works out well (and did this hit early enough to get Spidey in for Civil War?), but I kind of expect the cooperation to breakdown somewhere along the line when Sony and Marvel can't agree on some major point, Sony puts their foot down, and it screws up Marvel's larger picture plans.

My money's on "the combined power of Disney and Marvel is more than enough to quash over-interference by Sony."

[Psyren]

Honestly I'm not sure they should do Miles. Using him would likely require another origin story (the non-comic reading audience will all be like "Why is Spiderman blatino?"), whereas using Peter we can just kinda assume he's had his powers for a while and is just swinging around.

...How *did* Miles become the webhead anyway?

I'm mostly worried by Sony maintaining creative control. I hope it works out well (and did this hit early enough to get Spidey in for Civil War?), but I kind of expect the cooperation to breakdown somewhere along the line when Sony and Marvel can't agree on some major point, Sony puts their foot down, and it screws up Marvel's larger picture plans.

If that happens, Marvel will likely take a potshot at them in some way, similar to them tweaking Fox's nose over Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

[SaintRidley]

Miles became spider-powered by getting bitten by a spider that had been genetically enhanced using Peter's blood. Then, eventually, he sees Peter die and realizes that he could have helped prevent that if he had embraced the idea of using the powers he'd developed.

Also, updates:

Civil War cameo confirmed.

Sinister Six will still happen, but Sony has decided to rethink its approach to the movie (presumably to include Spider-Man, since they had the incredible dumbass idea to not include Spider-Man in it when they conceived of the movie).

Andrew Garfield is definitely out.

[Metahuman1]

My money's on "the combined power of Disney and Marvel is more than enough to quash over-interference by Sony."

Alas, with out Joss Wheadon, it won't be enough to Quash interference form Joe Quesada.



Yeah, this is the worst possible time for this to happen. Quesada's gonna find a way to screw this up. I'll bet he will absolutely refuse to let it get out of scripting unless it's Peter Parker and he's dating his daughter, who will be cast as his real life daughter, at the end.




Maybe it will bomb ultra hard and Quesada will be the one left to blame and Disney will fire him, that's honestly the best case I can hope for right now.

[Aotrs Commander]

Mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Spidey - MCU = good. On the other hand, I only saw ASM 2, but I thought Andrew Garfield made an excellent Spider-Man, more so than Toby Maguire. (Jury's out on Peter Parker, mind.) Also reboot (again) and you know how I hate tho-

Sinister Six will still happen, but Sony has decided to rethink its approach to the movie (presumably to include Spider-Man, since they had the incredible dumbass idea to not include Spider-Man in it when they conceived of the movie).

*mental screech to halt*

What.

WHAT.

WHAT!

They were actually going to...?

Without...?

Just...

I...

How did...?

Who...?

...

...

See, this is why I have no faith in humanity at all. Someone was actually paid to come up with an idea THAT stupid, and somebodies else were paid to authorise it. And at no point did was someone paid to hit both of those parties in the skull with a shovel until they stopped being so absolutely impossibly moronic.

[Metahuman1]

You think that's bad? Just wait till Quesada actually get's to have a large budget and creative control of Spidey for live action main stream films.

[JoshL]

Miles. Donald Glover. We need this to happen.

[BeerMug Paladin]

Sinister Six will still happen, but Sony has decided to rethink its approach to the movie (presumably to include Spider-Man, since they had the incredible dumbass idea to not include Spider-Man in it when they conceived of the movie).

Isn't whether or not having a character show up the sort of thing that a writer decides on when crafting a story?

[Metahuman1]

In this case, it would be the equivalent of doing a movie about Lex Luther, Metallo, Parasite and Livewire with out letting superman be in the movie.

[BeerMug Paladin]

In this case, it would be the equivalent of doing a movie about Lex Luther, Metallo, Parasite and Livewire with out letting superman be in the movie.

If Superman/(Spiderman) would be irrelevant to the plot for a theoretical story, it would be appropriate to leave him out. Especially since he could potentially overshadow the main characters. Every minute of screen time devoted to a side character detracts from the time given to a main character(s).

It's an even bigger potential problem when you're trying to make a movie for audiences who have no idea who multiple main characters are before going in. You'd need precious screen time to develop them.

Anyway, it just strikes me as odd to be approving of producer intervention. That is usually not a good sign.

[Soras Teva Gee]

Isn't whether or not having a character show up the sort of thing that a writer decides on when crafting a story?

Not really. Movies are only occasionally "written" in that sense.

Rather the sort of stuff a writer might brainstorm for a novel is handled by... anyone who's anyone in the project. Because if say the director wants something, since they actually make it they can get it and certainly cut things they don't like.

Sometimes this works well enough, the MCU is a great example where there's a large studio level plan and particular directors/writers/etc/etc and if any one person runs it is Kevin Feige but the Avengers is still obviously Whedon's work. Other times you get hairdressers wanting polar bears and giant spiders.

Anyways its completely normal for the characters to be set and the story written around set elements.

[Legato Endless]

Honestly I'm not sure they should do Miles. Using him would likely require another origin story (the non-comic reading audience will all be like "Why is Spiderman blatino?"), whereas using Peter we can just kinda assume he's had his powers for a while and is just swinging around.

Yeah, one would think the market for Super Hero origin stories would collapse at some point, but they just keep pumping out. At least Dr. Strange seems to actually be established for his film.

Update: Apparently they're skewing the character younger this time, since the first several films is supposed to be set in High School, unlike the previous outings where that was abandoned after Act 1. No confirmation, but apparently they are considering using Miles and not Pete.

[Lizard Lord]

My main hope with this is that it gets Agent Venom in the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy.

[t209]

My main hope with this is that it gets Agent Venom in the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy.

So, I wonder if the audience are ready for the fact that
- Peter Parker is an adult (used to be married with Mary Jane until Joe Q ruined it) and a CEO of Parker Industries (now many of his gadgets can be used for practical purposes from hip replacements to cybernetic limbs).
- Flash Thompson (Agent Venom) as a sympathetic military man and friend of Peter Parker.

[jedipotter]

So, what do we want to see from this?

Lets hope for not too much. Even in the comics, Spider Man was always an Outcast. He really does not fit in with the rest of the Marvel Universe. Sure he guest stars here and there, but he is not a part of the universe.

And Spider Man has the weird bit of being a criminal vigilantly, and that does not really fit in with the Marvel Heroes. Though I bet that is exactly why they want Spider Man in the MCU: he is the poster boy of the whole Civil War. And Marvel is obsessed with the idea that they must do a Civil War movie.