Avi Arad is a veteran producer in Hollywood who is perhaps best known for working on the Spider-Man franchise. However, he's become widely hated by fans for a number of reasons. For example, he shoehorned Venom into Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 3 and came up with all that convoluted nonsense in The Amazing Spider-Man movies.
Oh, and he's also responsible for Venom, Morbius, and pretty much all the poorly executed ideas we're seeing play out in Sony's Marvel Universe.
Rumour has it that there's no love lost between Arad and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, so no one was really surprised when Arad was frozen out of Spider-Man's Marvel Cinematic Universe debut. Now, we've learned how Arad feels about the wall-crawler swinging into the MCU.
In an excerpt from new book, Great Power, the producer is quoted as saying it was "the worst deal," adding that, "They did it for the money. Terrible. Like giving your kids away for adoption, just because you're not sure what to do with them."
Remember, Arad was the one who wanted The Amazing Spider-Man 3 to feature a formula that would raise the dead, while he also hoped to make a Sinister Six movie...with Peter Parker as one of the members of the team.
Looking at the success the franchise has found courtesy of Marvel Studios' creative input, it's clear Sony made the right decision. After all, being part of that trilogy and the Avengers movies has restored Spider-Man's status as one of the world's most popular superheroes, whereas the alternative was for him to be hanging out with Venom and Morbius.
For some reason, Arad was given a gushing thank you in Spider-Man: No Way Home's credits, so we do wonder if he either demanded that or if it was done to placate him.
Either way, here's hoping Spidey remains off-limits to him for the foreseeable future.