For a time, it appeared as if Tom Holland's Spider-Man would leave the Marvel Cinematic Universe and return to Sony Pictures' own Marvel Universe. That didn't sit well with fans and after a lot of online backlash, the studio sat down with Disney to make a new deal that would see them share the hero.
It no longer appears as if the web-slinger will be "the only hero with the superpower to cross cinematic universes," as Kevin Feige once said, because Sony appears to have realised that it's wiser to keep Spider-Man in the MCU. That's not a bad thing (Morbius proved as much), and it appears the studio is now taking a three-pronged approach to the Marvel characters they own moving forward.
"We have our Marvel business, which breaks into three tranches," Sony Pictures Chairman Tom Rothman told Deadline during a recent interview when asked about future plans. "There are the Spider-Man movies, and we’re currently at work on two Spider-Verse sequels to our Oscar-winning animated movie, with Lord and Miller. We hope to get working on the next Spider-Man movie."
"Tranches" is an interesting choice of word as it's typically used in the business world to describe a security that can be split up into smaller pieces and sold to investors. Perhaps this business-orientated approach to the Marvel Universe is why Sony appears to be struggling in live-action without the MCU?
While Rothman doesn't directly reference Marvel Studios, Feige has confirmed that the studio is actively developing a Spider-Man: No Way Home sequel. As a result, we're assuming that franchise will continue to remain separate from both the Spider-Verse animated franchise and the likes of Venom 3, Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web, Spider-Woman, and El Muerto.
The key name there could be Spider-Woman because even though Sony's Marvel Universe might be lacking a Peter Parker, any one of the women to have held that mantle can easily fill the void.
Spider-Man 4 doesn't currently have a release date.
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