Spider-man and Sony's Cinematic Universe

It’s almost been 2 years since the release of The AmazingSpider-man 2 and a little bit under a year and a half since the Sony Hack. Since then, Sony has done all they can to recuperate their losses and start climbing their way back up to the top and that is definitely prevalent in their plans for a rebooted Spider-man franchise and their superhero plans in general.

Back before the release of The Amazing Spider-man 2 and the Sony/Marvel deal that fulfilled every ones dreams of having Spider-man show up in Marvel cinematic universe movies, especially Civil War, Sony had big plans to create a cinematic universe around their only superhero, Spider-man. There were plans for a Sinister Six movie to come out, a Venom movie, more Spider-man movies, an all-female super team, and my personal favorite, an Aunt May movie. Now all those plans are in question as we wait to see the popularity of Spider-man in his limited role in Civil War as well as his new standalone film in 2017.

The way I see it, those plans don’t really need to go anywhere, they just probably need to be pushed back. The deal with Marvel shouldn’t restrict Sony in expanding their Spider-man universe the way they wanted to, it should expand it even more as the deal makes it so Sony can use Marvel characters in those movies as well. Of course we need to wait and see how Spider-man is received and if there is a future for Tom Holland as the web slinger, however, this deal helps everyone and hurts no one.

No I don’t think Sony should go ahead with an Aunt May spy thriller (although Marissa Tomei might surprise me) but there is a lot of source material to go through when it comes to Spider-man. It may not be the cinematic universe Sony had in mind, but if anything, it allows for Spider-man to climb higher in his adventures because he exists in a larger universe now.

Furthermore (and this is more of a selfish reason) Spider-man can now collaborate with The Avengers to shake things up. Because of that, the Avengers can now face Spider-man villains and vice-versa.

The Sinister Six can still happen!

Sony hasn’t been totally dormant when it comes to Spider-man. They definitely have their eyes set on the standalone film because they feel they have to revitalize a character that has already been revitatlized, that is a challenge. But they also just announced they are going to be making a standalone Venom movie.

Wait… what?

That crappy bad guy from Spider-man 3 played by Eric from That 70’s Show? Now I know Venom is a better character than that movie made it out to be, at least he is in the comics, and I feel like they could do a really interesting expansion of the Spider-man universe by having Venom be an anti-hero, face off with Spider-man here and there, but have his own horror like adventures… Except… he’s going to be separate from the new Spider-man?

Wait… why?

I mean I understand wanting to create a character to stand on its own that could create his own franchise, but this is such a weird choice by Sony. Venom is an incredibly iconic Spider-man character, one of his top villains, and definitely a part of his universe. And you’re just not going to give him any connections to the Spider-man we’re going to see in Civil War? That doesn’t make any sense Sony!

Now Venom was a planned movie in the universe that was going to be set up by The Amazing Spider-man films. I remember hearing about a standalone Venom film for years and that it was going to be connected to The Sinister Six and the Amazing Spider-man films. Again, I don’t think you need to totally scrap those ideas. Sinister Six can work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom can work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you have the materials, why don’t you use them Sony?!?

So why hasn’t Sony introduced their plans for this yet?

Well the answer is quite simple. They’ve done it before and the results were not good. They’ve released plans looking ambitiously to the future and all those plans fell through.

On top of that, there is some Spider-man fatigue.

A lot has changed since the first Sam Raimi Spider-man filmcame out in 2002. The superhero genre has cracked open and now B or C list characters like Guardians of the Galaxy are being discovered and thriving. In fact Guardians destroyed The Amazing Spider-man 2 in 2014 when it came to box office results. Ant-man is getting sequels greenlit and while think that movie was surprisingly fun but probably pretty formulaic in the grand scheme of things, people are more interested in the new characters Marvel can create interesting stories for rather than the same old rehash of Spider-man for the 3^rd time. This will be the 6^th Spider-man film in 2017 and Sony has an uphill battle to make Spider-man exciting again.

I wrote this post mainly in response to the new of the Spider-manless Venom film and to say Sony just keeps on missing the point. I get it, Sony is a business that wants to make money, money is in franchises these days. I also get it that this deal with Sony and Marvel is probably not as conducive as a relationship as I’d like to believe that it is. The fan in me sees this as a perfect opportunity for both organizations to maintain autonomy over their property while creating a larger universe. But knowing what I know about Marvel and their very restrictive creative control, I wouldn’t have been surprised if this Venom thing is a way to maintain creative control over a property that Kevin Fiege would have instead taken down his own dark rabbit hole that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But I don’t really see the alternative Sony!

This is the situation we have found ourselves in, a situation where Spider-man is a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and struggling to remain relevant. I understand that it won’t be until 2017 that Sony reveals any future universe building plans, but I think I’m just impatient.

I like any other comic book fan want to see Spider-man fight the Sinister Six and recruit help from Tony Stark or other characters from The Avengers. I want Captain America to fight characters from the Spider-man mythology. And the thing is, we now have the opportunity for all of that to happen. Maybe I just want to hear the plans to know that its going to happen, but right now all I am hearing is that Spider-man is going to show up in Civil War in what seems like a very small role and he’s going to have ANOTHER standalone film in 2017 reintroducing the character even though we’ve seen him recreated 2 times already!

The hope that I have is that all of this is going to come to its real fruition after Infinity Wars. That will open up Marvel’s slate a little bit more and they can use that partnership to continue their world, even after the biggest thing that could happen (The Infinity Wars) happens.

Maybe some of these questions will be answered after Civil War, maybe the interest for Spider-man will peak again after his small role in that movie. Because of that I will probably do another post like this after Civil War comes out, but until then I will keep my ear to the ground to see what the plan is for Spider-man and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But hey… it could still fail.

But what do you think? Where do you think they’re headed with the Spider-man Universe and its connection to the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Do you think I used the word universe too much in this review? Comment and Discuss below!

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I'll leave you with this. Here's a video of a Spider-man vs a T-Rex... Enjoy!