Marvel Studios
With Disney’s D23 expo kicking off last week, the Mouse House has certainly had their hands full as they announced dozens of new projects, including three new Marvel Studios series.
However, while the announcement of She-Hulk, Moon Knight, and Ms. Marvel (in addition to the unveiling of the Eternals in costume AND the release of the first Black Widow poster), the Marvel-related story that has dominated the headlines and conversation over the last week has been the potential loss of Spider-Man.
Due to a breakdown in negotiations between Marvel Studios and Sony, it appears that everyone’s favorite wall-crawler may be abruptly removed from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and tossed back into the Sony Universe with Venom. And if Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige is any indication, hope that a deal gets done to keep Spidey in the MCU seems minimal.
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly at Disney’s epic D23 expo weekend, Feige sure sounded like a man who has begun to accept that Spidey will no longer be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
“We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man in it. Two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we would be able to do this, and we told the story that we wanted to tell. I will always be thankful for that,” Feige said.
MCU or no MCU, @TomHolland1996 is excited to keep playing Spider-Man. “We’ll find new ways to make it even cooler somehow.” #D23Expo pic.twitter.com/crNU3BNvAT
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) August 24, 2019
If the Marvel Cinematic Universe does actually lose Spider-Man, they certainly find themselves in a tricky situation, as Spider-Man — arguably their most popular character — was in the midst of an arc that saw him becoming the focal point of the franchise.
And while I’ve been holding out hope that the news of the disagreement between the two studios was merely a negotiation tactic, these latest comments from Feige truly do make it feel as though Spider-Man’s time in the MCU has come to an end.
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Eric is a New York City-based writer who still isn’t sure how he’s allowed to have this much fun for a living and will tell anyone who listens that Gotham City is canonically in New Jersey. Contact him: eric@brobible.com.