Marvel and Sony part ways, ‘Spider-man’ disappears from Marvel universe

The success of ‘Spider-Man: Far from Home’ lead to a public spat between the two big entertainment studios, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios.

Problems started brewing between the two studios when Marvel and its parent company, Disney, wanted a bigger portion of Spider-Man movies, reports The Hollywood Reporter.

Sony, which holds the major share of the franchise, refused to extend the existing agreement which sees Marvel receiving a modest five percent of first-dollar gross, as well as all merchandising revenue.

This led to continuous meetings between Sony film studio chief Tom Rothman and Marvel president Kevin Feige for months, unfortunately they could not come to an agreement. Sony has removed Feige from producing future Spider-Man movies.

Marvel fans will be disheartened because Tom Holland’s character will disappear completely from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This will act as a major setback for Marvel studious because their ‘Avengers: Endgame’ saw the exit of two major characters, Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark and Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers.

Earlier on, Holland had appeared in five MCU releases, and his movie ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ has led him to great success in Hollywood.

Spider-Man was first introduced to the world of Marvel in 2016's Captain America: Civil War. The 2015 deal between Sony and Marvel allowed the character to appear in Marvel Studios films such as Avengers: Infinity War. It also saw Marvel co-produce Spider-Man films with Sony.

After the disastrous performance of ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’ (2014), Feige and Marvel Studios boosted the popularity of the character on the silver screen by including popular MCU characters such as Downey's Tony Stark or Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury on Marvel produced movies.

Sony has the rights to a number of Spider-Man-related characters, such as Venom. Tom Hardy starred as Venom in the 2018 eponymous film that earned $856 million globally and has a sequel in the works. The studio also has Jared Leto set to play Morbius, a vampire character from the Spider-Man mythos.

On Monday, Sony announced that ‘Far From Home’ had surpassed ‘Skyfall’ to become the studio’s most successful release, with a worldwide box office collection of $1.109 billion. Spider-Man: Homecoming, the other Marvel Studios-produced film, grossed $880.2 million.