8 Possible Futures For The Spider-Man Movie Franchise
3. Sony Sells The Rights To Marvel
Most of what Sony's doing now is really damage management. They masterminded a mess of series and are now trying to ensure it has some financial viability going forward. When (rather than if) that proves impossible, they can always catch the franchise in a tissue and chuck it away. By which we mean they sell the rights back to Marvel. In theory this could happen at any point (although it obviously is of more value the earlier on in the MCU it is), assuming the contract allows this. It's obviously not going to be as profitable as making new movies, but it would save money and reduce risk. Now Marvel would have total free rein with the character - no obligation to make him the focus of a certain film and follow a Sony checklist - able to either borrow from Amazing or completely reboot the hero. Things would probably have to go even worse for this to happen and even then it's incredibly unlikely. All this speculation is fruitless for the same reason we don't think this, nor an expensive loaning of the character, will happen; Marvel dont need Spider-Man. When they started out, the studio would have jumped at the chance to have one of their most well known heroes on board, but now, with the will-they-wont-they surrounding Iron Man 4 getting more coverage than everything to do with Peter Parker, hes just not the cinematic draw he once was. Weve just had a summer where a Guardians Of The Galaxy movie had more of an impact than Spider-Man. Do Marvel really want to bother doing a character weve seen born twice before on cinema screens? Maybe, but certainly not if it comes with a price tag. And thus that leaves us with another possibility.
