Failure to renegotiate contract forces Spider-Man out of the Marvel Universe

Last week news broke that shocked many Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans.

It was revealed that due to the falling apart of negotiations Spider-Man, played by Tom Holland, would have to leave the MCU.

After two solo film outings, the most recent being “Spider-Man: Far From Home” and three ensemble film appearances, he must venture out on his own.

After becoming such an integral part of the MCU, considered to be as much a fixture as Tony Stark, he will just vanish.

It is not due to Tom Holland or any creative decision, but because Sony and Disney cannot agree on terms for the continued use of Spider-Man inside the MCU.

Sony owns all film rights to Spider-Man and his villains since 1998 and up until 2015 it was unbelievable that Spider-Man would get his shot to star in the MCU.

Once Sony began to fail in the box office with “The Amazing Spider-Man” series starring Andrew Garfield however, they began looking towards Disney and the MCU property.

Sony controlled the distribution rights and had creative control over the film with Marvel’s Kevin Fiege as the creative producer. Disney received all revenue from the merchandising and got to use Spider-Man.

After churning out five very successful films involving Spidey they cannot come to another agreement. Many conflicting reports say that Disney asked for around a 30%-50% co-financing arrangement for all future Spider-Man films while still retaining merchandising rights.

This would make Disney and Sony official partners when it came to Spider-Man, but since Disney still controlled all merchandising rights yet asked for a bigger cut of the profits, Sony felt taken advantage of.

Neither studio felt the need to budge forcing Sony to pull Spidey.

Tom Holland, however, remains contracted with the franchise. In order to keep their license, Sony must make a Spider-Man film every five years. This motivates Sony to push forward with two more Spider-Man films involving Tom Holland.

Nothing is known about these films, but if they intend to continue the story left off in “Far From Home” then a lot will have to change.

If Spider-Man is not a part of the MCU then he cannot mention The Avengers, including his mentor Tony Stark, and vice versa. It will be like everyone just forgot who he was and that he existed.

Both Kevin Fiege and Tom Holland have said that the future is a mystery and that it has been five great years, indicating that it is officially over. While Jeremy Renner who plays MCU’s Hawkeye has helped start a “Save Spider-Man” campaign on social media.

With the success of “Venom” and “Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse” it is hard to see why Sony would need to come back to the negotiation table. They seem to be learning how to make a Spider-Man related film on their own.

However, Disney also has no reason to head back to the table with the recent acquisition of both X-Men and Fantastic Four, as well as the fact the MCU will be able to survive without Spiderman.

Yet will this iteration of Spider-Man be able to survive without the MCU?

Fans will have to wait and see if an agreement is yet to be reached.

For now, all we can hope for is that Spider-Man has a great and successful future either in or outside of the MCU.