August 20, 2019, marked a sad day for many Marvel fans. Sony and Disney, the owners of Marvel Studios, who have partnered in creating Spider-man movies since 2015, announced that their already fragile deal had fallen apart after the most recent production of Spider-man: Far From Home. Since then, it has been believed that Spider-man will no longer appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), resulting in a lot of back and forth between the two corporations.

Spider-man first appeared in the MCU in Captain America: Civil War. Since then, Spider-man has become a member of the Avengers and has had two solo movies under Marvel’s support. Marvel generated Spider-man as a significant character in its movies, and fans could not picture future MCU movies without the famous web-slinger: “I really liked Spider-man in [Marvel] movies. I’m sad that he has to leave,” commented senior Dave Becker.

Sony owns the rights to the Spider-man character and has made different movie adaptions of the famous comic, starring both Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield. However, their films were not as well received as Marvel’s. The most recent Spiderman film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, surpassed the sales records held by most of the Sony films, second only to the first Spider-man movie starring Toby Maguire. With the Marvel films doing so well in theaters, Disney decided to
renegotiate the financial terms of its partnership with Sony in the hopes of making more money.

In past movie deals, Sony has covered all production costs of the Spiderman movies, and Disney has received a very small cut of the box office profits. However, Disney also receives money from any Spider-Man merchandise produced. To see a bigger financial gain from the movies, Disney wanted to pay some of the production costs to split the movie earnings more evenly. This agreement did not go over well with Sony and resulted in a falling out that temporarily ended their partnership.

The two companies have since rectified their dissension and agreed to continue making films together. Fans have been promised a third installment in the Spider-man: Homecoming series and a role for Tom Holland’s Spider-man in an unknown, future Marvel film.

The ending of Spider-man: Far From Home left fans with many clues as to the future direction of the MCU and definitely indicated that Holland’s Spider-man was planned to have a large role in it. Had the two companies not reconciled, there would have been serious plot issues that could have potentially become quite problematic for anything Marvel has planned for its next step. “I have been watching Spider-man since I was a little kid, and it’s definitely my favorite series of movies. The fact that there were not going to be anymore [movies] made was really upsetting to me,” said junior Erica Cimato, a die-hard Spider-man fan.

Marvel’s Spider-man has also been seen by fans as the best version of the movies due to its portrayal of the beloved main character. Marvel stays true to the nature of the character, and it isperhaps for that reason that movie fans have responded more positively to the newer movies than to the older ones.

The announcement of the Sony and Disney reconciliation on September 27 shocked fans that had already lost hope for Spider-man’s future in the MCU. While the original agreement was only hanging by a thread, fans are holding out hope for this new agreement. Senior David Castillo commented on the agreement, “It would’ve been a shame to see Spider-man go for good after all of the hard work and storytelling that Marvel put into his character. I’m definitely glad that there will be more Marvel Spider-man movies and that his appearances in the MCU will continue.”