Spider-Man fans are rejoicing today because Sony finally admitted that it has no idea what it’s doing with the world’s most famous wall-crawler. A deal was struck between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios that will allow Spider-Man to appear in Marvel’s cinematic universe, but it also forces Kevin Feige to produce Sony’s next installment with Amy Pascal.
Question: Will Amy Pascal become Kevin Feige’s Mephisto?
Marvel’s Feb. 10 press release reads:
Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.
Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films.
In the short run, this is great for Marvel. Kevin Feige has done a wonderful job bringing the Marvel universe to the big screen, and there is no reason to believe that he will screw it up with Spider-Man. However, in the long run Sony still has creative control over the character and now the company must deal with Amy Pascal. Sony’s S.S. Spider-Man was foundering and in many ways Marvel may have just come to the rescue of drunk captains who deserved to lose it all.
It will be a sad day if Kevin Feige’s name is attached to future Spider-Man failures because of Amy Pascal’s intransigence. While Spider-Man fans should be thrilled that the character will show up in future Marvel Studios movies, they should seriously ask themselves if Marvel made a deal with the devil when total victory was within reach.
Douglas Ernst Blog 