Spider-Man: Far From Home Must Make $1 Billion For Sony/MCU Deal To Continue

Unique contract clause means Far From Home's box office could void the Sony/Marvel Studios deal.

By Andrew Pollard / July 9, 2019

Sony Pictures

In an intriguing piece information, there’s a small chance – an extremely small chance – that Sony Pictures may soon regain complete control over the cinematic antics of Spider-Man.

Having held the movie rights to Spider-Man since 1999, Sony and its Columbia Pictures banner got together with Marvel Studios in 2015 to hash out a deal to bring ol’ Web-head into the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe. After all, Spider-Man is Marvel Comics’ biggest name, and an MCU without Spidey just didn’t feel quite right.

That 2015 deal saw Sony effectively borrow Spider-Man to Marvel Studios to incorporate into the MCU. Any Spider-Man pictures – i.e. Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home – were to be joint productions between Sony and Marvel Studios, with creative input from both parties on how to showcase the Wall-crawler in these movies.

Courtesy of industry newsletter The Ankler, however, Richard Rushfield has revealed an intriguing clause in this ongoing agreement. That clause states that should Spider-Man: Far From Home fail to pass $1 billion at the box office then full control of Spider-Man will revert back to Sony Pictures for a third solo outing for Tom Holland’s Spidey.

Now, $1 billion may sound like a huge amount for the movie to hit, but Far From Home is already close to taking $600 million since hitting the silver screen on July 2nd. It’s also worth considering that eight previous MCU movies have managed to surpass that $1 billion mark.

All in all, it seems highly likely that Spider-Man: Far From Home will indeed pass $1 billion – but should it not, the future of Peter Parker could be extremely different.

Authored by Andrew Pollard

Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.

Posted On: 9th Jul 2019

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