8 Things Nobody Wants To Admit About MCU Spider-Man

2. He's Treated More Like A Commodity Than An Actual Character

Spider-Man Venom
Sony Pictures

This is potentially a little cynical, but when looking at Spider-Man on the big screen now, he definitely seems more like a commodity than a flesh-and-blood character who serves an essential narrative purpose.

At the end of the day, films are meant to make money. Superhero films typify that mindset the most in that they've been at the forefront of popular culture for well over two decades. Batman is valuable IP. The X-Men are valuable IP. And so too is Spider-Man.

I'm not going to pretend that other heroes aren't great sodding moneymaking machines that producers aren't desperate to acquire - they are. But in the context of the MCU, they fulfil a narrative purpose. There's a reason why the Infinity Saga was such an edifying experience for millions of fans across the globe.

When it comes to Spidey though, you do get the sense that he's more an "asset" than an organic component of a given franchise. The Sony/Marvel deal works to each company's mutual benefit; Sony get to have a slice of the MCU pie, and Marvel get to include their most popular character in their flagship franchise. It's a no brainer, but it can also seem disingenuous.

Right now, Sony are doing their damndest to make their own Spider-Man universe, using the character's brand and association with the MCU to bring C-list characters like Morbius and Jackpot to the silver-screen as heroes. Then there's the long-running Spider-Man/Venom crossover, a project bound to get True Believers excited, but one that feels just about as contrived and unnecessary as 2016's Batman V Superman.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.