The popularity of Spider-Man on the big screen was not at its best after the premiere of ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’, the lowest-grossing live-action film starring this superhero. So a decision had to be made about what to do with the character, but what hardly anyone expected was the historic agreement reached by Sony and Marvel.
The origins of an unprecedented agreement
A few months ago we reviewed all the reasons that led to Andrew Garfield stop playing Peter Parker, but in Marvel they already saw that they could fish in a troubled river before that materialized. Hence, already in October 2014 they had contacted Sony to collaborate together. Marvel proposed to help Sony relaunch the character in exchange for being able to use him in some of his adventures.
However, the deal did not go ahead at first. Sony was not convinced by Marvel’s proposal, in part because of the expectations of Ike PerlmutterCEO of Marvel Entertainment at that time -in September of the following year he would stop supervising Marvel Studios-, to keep half of the profits generated by ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ -although at first the idea of make ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 3’, but Kevin Feig never liked that idea – while Sony would receive a much smaller share of the profits from ‘Captain America: Civil War’. There were several meetings, but the thing did not bear fruit.
Time passed and the ideas that Sony was handling, such as a ‘Sinister Six’ movie, did not convince the studio either, but what helped the events to precipitate was the hacking suffered by Sony at the end of the year. So everyone knew that there were contacts between the two studios to share Spider-Man and the pressure skyrocketed.
That led Sony to rethink the situation and contact Marvel again., who at that time was also in a hurry, but not publicly known, to use Spider-Man in ‘Captain America: Civil War’. The agreement became official in February 2015, announcing the arrival of a new reboot for two years later.
Of course, Marvel was content on this occasion with 5% of its income, but got other things in return, such as having to pay Sony less for the income generated by the character’s merchandising if they achieved the expected success. This point was vital for Disney to accept an unprecedented agreement, as the studio brings in many millions that way, and the popularity of this new incarnation of the character has only made them grow even more. In addition, Sony would not receive any of the profits from Marvel Studios movies that featured Spider-Man.
The position of both was clear about the need to sign a younger actor, Sony making sure that they were the ones who made the final decision in this regard. After exploring various options ESA Mariposastar of ‘Sex Education’, it was even said that he had been booked-, the chosen one was Tom Holland. Good proof that Marvel was also in a hurry is that just days after it was announced, Holland was already filming his small but vital appearance in ‘Civil War’.
‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ airs tonight on La 1 at 10:05 p.m.