Marvel Had Planned For All Eventualities When It Came To SPIDER-MAN
Though the deal is done and Spidey will be a part of the MCU, for a long time Marvel wasn't certain the Webhead would be made available and had multiple Phase 3 plans in place -- some to continue on with him, others without. Find out what Kevin Feige had to say about this after the jump...
Just three months before the big announcement that Sony and Marvel had come to a deal regarding Spider-Man, Kevin Feige had already mapped out the latter's Phase 3 plans... and the Wall Crawler's name was never mentioned. Many of us figured this must have been sign that any negotiations between the studios that may have occurred must have fallen through, but obviously we now know that wasn't the case.
So how drastically did Marvel have to alter those plans once Spidey became available? By the sounds of things, not that much! During an interview with /Film, Kevin Feige confirms that the studio had been trying to regain control of the character for a very long time, but had mapped out scenarios that would allow them to continue on with or without him.
You made the Phase Three announcement in October, planning through 2019. Then a few months later, Marvel’s biggest character becomes available. How drastically did the Phase Three plans change when Spider-Man was back in the mix?
"As you might have imagined, that had been in the works for a long, long, long, long time. And we had, as we often do, mapped out various alternatives if things don’t happen. So we had a plan how it would continue without him and we have a plan how now it will continue with him. I wouldn’t say it was “drastic” but we were certainly happy when it all came together."
Sounds like they were always pretty confident they'd get him, but it's good business to prepare for any outcome. There were rumors that Black Panther would be filling Spider-Man's role in Captain America: Civil War so it's possible that was one of Marvel's "without him" scenarios. We may never have that confirmed or find out what the rest of them were, but feel free to speculate below.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.