Spider-Man Officially Joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe
Well it's happened:
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Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios announced today that Sony is bringing Marvel into the amazing world of Spider-Man.
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.
The new relationship follows a decade of speculation among fans about whether Spider-Man – who has always been an integral and important part of the larger Marvel Universe in the comic books – could become part of the Marvel Universe on the big screen. Spider-Man has more than 50 years of history in Marvel's world, and with this deal, fans will be able to experience Spider-Man taking his rightful place among other Super Heroes in the MCU.
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Four future installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have received new release dates through 2019, including Thor’s next solo adventure as well as the first films for Black Panther, Captain Marvel and the Inhumans!
Marvel’s “Thor: Ragnarok” will hit theaters November 3, 2017. The following year, Marvel’s “Black Panther” will make its way to theaters on July 6, 2018, and Marvel’s “Captain Marvel” on November 2, 2018. Finally, Marvel’s “Inhumans” will now debut in theaters July 12, 2019.
The previously announced dates for Marvel’s “Avengers: Infinity War Part 1” and “Avengers: Infinity War Part 2” on May 4, 2018 and May 3, 2019, respectively, remain unchanged.
Kind of unnecessary to be honest but hey, the good news is Spider-Man is finally in the universe. I can't be too salty about the date moves because we're still getting those movies and now we're finally getting a Spider-Man movie where people can just shut the fuck about about hating on it cause its not in the MCU. All is well that ends well. I'm also now certain that what I thought wouldn't happen will: Spider-Man will at least get a tease in Civil War. So now folks can stop begging for that now too.
Apologies in advance for my long winded comment. I have a theory as to why Marvel made the joint announcement with Sony when they did. I think they were playing a fascinating cat and mouse game with WB/DC.
Everyone knows that the Dawn of Justice teaser has been heavily rumored to drop at one of four different points: The Hobbit, the SuperBowl, Jupiter Ascending and Mad Max. The first two made little sense (former was too far away, the second being ridiculous money to pay to promote a movie that’ll be released after NEXT YEAR’S SuperBowl). Jupiter seemed timely though, and could’ve used the push.
Welp, nothing happened. It could be down to one of three reasons. 1, the rumour was bullshit. And 2, WB didn’t want to release the teaser to the biggest movie they’ve made since The Dark Knight Rises to a turd.
And there’s 3 – WB got wind of the Marvel/Sony joint announcement. And rather than risk the teaser launch getting overshadowed within days by a frikkin’ announcement, they held it back.
If that happened, that’s a smart move on their part. Because as much as I love DC and believe in what they’re doing, Marvel (who I also love) is now at the point where they could announce Howard the Duck 2, with George Lucas as director, and stop all internet traffic. They’re simply Teflon ATM, and rightly so.
So I’m not basing this on much…purely a guess, and a couple of clues. The timing of that announcement is almost unheard of…outside of E3 or some west coast tech show, who the hell does a thing like that at midnight eastern? I mean, why not announce it tonight either during or around Agent Carter?
Yet, what finished playing at around midnight EST? Gotham on the west coast. It would’ve been fair to guess that the Dawn teaser could’ve been shown sometime during Gotham to give a bit more exposure, as well as a ratings boost, only for Marvel to c-walk in immediately after with the big news of their own.
It would be a cold blooded move, and while I believe Marvel and DC have respect for each other, this is the first time in a while where Marvel is (ATM) far above the Distinguished Competition on this sort of scale. So why not flex a little and show that some more? I ain’t even mad.
The other clue is something that I haven’t seen talked about much: I don’t think the timing of Amy Pascal’s “resignation” last week (which had been a long time coming) was a coincidence. Just a few days later she’s a co-producer on Spidey. I doubt that just happened, and I imagine Hollywood types in the know knew this was in the offing. Last week’s move could’ve paved the way for last night’s announcement.
So when will the Dawn teaser drop? How about February 27th? Focus, the least rumored movie drop would make the most sense, considering it’s co-stars will also be in Suicide Squad. Focus being shown on IMAX screens doesn’t hurt either.
Anyway, apologies again for the long winded thoughts…it might just be a load of nothing, but I found the timing of the news as interesting as the news itself. I can’t wait to see what both outfits have to offer over the coming years, so either way I’m good.
It’s an interesting theory but the biggest thing against it to me is that I don’t believe the rumors about the Dawn of Justice teaser were anything more than rumors. It’s very rare that we get a teaser for a movie more than 8 months out. It happens but rarely. Disney did it with Star Wars episode 7 but other than that, most have been about 8-9 months out. Age of Ultron was, Ant-Man was and Fantastic Four. I think the earliest we’re looking to see Dawn of Justice is maybe March and even that’s a stretch. I think its one of those things where studios don’t want to blow their load too early and the truth is, Dawn of Justice sells itself. It’s best to keep the people wanting and begging to see something than to do it too early just to open up the floodgates of ridiculous critiques off a teaser. I also believe if they’re going to drop it, it will probably be online first before anything else. If they were going to drop it on Gotham, they would have told people to tune in to see it.