I remember when Sony first confirmed they were making a Venom movie. I remember thinking to myself that they had to be getting help from Marvel Studios on this film too. After all, they were working with Marvel Studios to create Spider-Man: Homecoming, which just so happens to be my favorite Phase Three film to date. Venom was a Spider-Man character and surely Sony wouldn't move ahead on a film that had to feature Spider-Man without Marvel Studios? Well, I was right in one way. Venom wasn't going to feature Spider-Man and they would be doing it without the aid of Marvel Studios.
Needless to say, I was just as shocked as anyone else. But what I saw, aside from shock, was anger and fear. How could Sony, after having made this deal, start developing their own universe? Are they going to take Spider-Man from the MCU to help create this universe?
We know now that the deal between Sony and Marvel Studios is set to sunset after Spider-Man: Far From Home. This is only the second film in the new Spider-Man film franchise. Many people feel like they will be cheated out of a third film that features the fan-favorite hero in the fan-favorite comic book film universe. Especially if Venom is successful, and Sony thinks they don't need Marvel Studios anymore, why wouldn't Sony take Spider-Man back and put them in their own successful universe?
We were left wondering what their plan was...until the article from
Variety came out that detailed the plans that
Sony had for the universe they were starting with
Venom. What was revealed was quite interesting. Here's what it detailed:
1) Sony wanted to keep Venom PG-13 so that Spider-Man could appear in future films.
This one understandably scared fans. From everything we'd heard, this was set to be a whole new universe, separate from the MCU. If Spider-Man is going to appear in future installments in this universe, this must mean that Spider-Man was going to be taken back by Sony, right?
2) Sony and Marvel Studios have strengthened their cooperative relationship on these films.
This seems counter-intuitive. Why would Sony strengthen their bond with Marvel Studios in order to just throw the deal away after the film that was already in production? That doesn't seem to make any sense.
3) Sony is open to the possibility of having Avengers characters in their films and, the assumption is, allowing their characters to also appear in the MCU.
This is where it becomes clear where
Sony's head is at. They want
Venom, and their universe of films, to act as adjuncts to the MCU. They want to be able to, at least, have Spider-Man swing over to their films while Spider-Man remains to play in the MCU at large. While
Sony wants to capitalize on this partnership, they also want more films tied with Spider-Man to launch so they can make more money, which is what every business (yes, including
Disney), wants to do. It seems that
Sony will likely make a play for Spider-Man, at the very least, to be able to play in both the MCU and
Sony's universe of films.
Now, Kevin Feige is a control-freak. You
have to be one to run the cinematic universe as well as he has for all these years. People are right to say that it is unlikely that Kevin Feige would allow
Sony to create content, without his direct oversight, set in the MCU. There are a variety of ways that this could play out but I'll just break this down to two simple options: either Feige steps in and gets more involved in future spin-off films (provided he feels that he can, especially with more heroes coming home to him to play with now) or he doesn't agree to
Sony's terms and allows them to either pull Spider-Man or keep the universes separate.
Let's take the latter position, which seems more likely. Well, in that case,
Sony is going to want Spider-Man in their universe so the only way to stop them from doing that is to tank their new universe, right?
I'd say that this is wrong because it just comes down to simple math.
We
know Sony is keen on making their own universe, filled with the
Marvel characters that they have rights to. If Feige refuses to
play ball and allow their movies to act as a part of the MCU,
Sony will likely continue to develop their own universe of films. How they go about doing it, though, will greatly depend on
Venom. However, I doubt that
Sony will take away the lesson that they should stop trying to develop a universe of their own if
Venom fails. For one thing,
The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was supposed to set up the same thing, didn't stop
Sony from pursuing a universe of characters for themselves. They reoriented. And, with a
Venom failure, they will reorient again.
Let's think this through. If
Venom is a failure, they will likely take away the same lesson that we have been screaming at them for a while.
You can't do a Venom movie without Spider-Man in it. Whether or not that is actually true could be up for debate but should
Venom fail both critically and commercially,
Sony will take that lesson away from it. Atop of the fact that Feige won't let the Spider-Man they created together swing to this movie universe, especially one that is floundering,
Sony will likely reorient their plans for a universe again. This time with an onous on Spider-Man.
Why would
Sony do this? Well, it just comes down to the simple calculus.
With just the
Marvel deal,
Sony gets a new
Spider-Man film that will likely perform in the $800 million plus range every two years.
That's quite a bit of revenue, but not for a film division that is desperately in search of box office hits. They need more than that, especially without the merchandising rights for the character. Even at their worst,
Sony's
Spider-Man films bottomed out at $700 million. With a difference of $150 million in extra revenue, that doesn't even make up for a modest performing comic book film. They will know that they can do better.
They know that cinematic universes work and that the strength of a cinematic universe can propel lesser-known characters to box office hits. Even
Ant-Man and the Wasp is going to perform in the $500 million range, even in a semi-crowded July. That is more than that kind of film has any business doing and everyone in the industry knows it. If
Sony can't get a Spider-Man-less cinematic universe to work, they are going to try for a Spider-Man cinematic universe with Spider-Man being the lynchpin. That means yanking him from the MCU.
Even if Spider-Man films perform at $700 million a pop (because even the bad ones do), the potential upside is a new
Venom movie that doesn't upset and a new
Kraven one that doesn't upset at the box office either. Let's look at the math from
Sony's perspective.
2021
Spider-Man Movie In the MCU - $900 million
2022
NO SONY MARVEL FILM
The prospect of
Sony giving up on their universe entirely is maybe $900 million (I'd hope higher because Spider-Man is my favorite character and I think he has the potential of getting a billion dollar film but we'll keep it performing modestly because we'll do the same for
Marvel films).
2021
Spider-Man Film Outside the MCU - $750 million
2022
Black Cat Film - $450 million
Morbius Film - $450 million
The prospect of
Sony taking Spider-Man back to form a new, more modest performing universe, yields a total amount of revenue of 1.65 billion dollars. That's even if they perform modestly.
Sony would likely keep the budgets of these spin-off films low and
Spider-Man films lower than they kept those for Marc Webb's films. This increases the margins on these to still make sure they perform pretty damn well.
If
Sony feels they can't make a universe work without Spider-Man, they will take him back. It just makes sense to their bottom line and, at the end of the day, that's what they are more interested in, same as Feige, who'd want to distance himself from these films, particularly if they're bad.
Now, let's imagine a scenario where
Venom is good and performs well. Well, it might give Feige more pause about not engaging with that universe for one thing. But even assuming he makes the same move to tell
Sony that these films must be kept separate,
Sony at least understands that their universe can work without Spider-Man because
Venom worked without him. They can determine that these characters are bigger than their relationship to the wall-crawler and, provided that they find the right screenwriter and director for each film, they can turn these projects into something that can make them money. So, the prospect looks better to just
keep them separate.
The hypothetical scenario looks like this:
2020
Venom Film - $550 million
2021
Spider-Man Film Set in the MCU - $900 million
2022
Black Cat Film - $450 million
Morbius Film - $450 million
Even taking out the
Venom sequel (which would be more or less just dependent on how well
Venom does),
Sony ends up with a deal that gets them 1.85 billion dollars. Those $200 million in the black are more than worth it to
Sony to keep these characters separate. So, even if Feige decides to not let the Spider-Man they created together play in
Sony's films,
Sony is looking at more lucrative deal having their
Spider-Man films receive the MCU boost and letting those other characters play by themselves.
Now, people might point out that
Sony is going to be less willing to reboot again. They've rebooted the character many, many times and that might hinder their bottom line. Well, that might be true at first (but I think they'd be willing to roll the dice on that anyway because sequels will probably get better), but I don't even think they need to reboot in spirit. Tom Holland's contract as Spider-Man includes three movies with
Marvel Studios (
Captain America: Civil War,
Avengers: Infinity War, and
Avengers 4) and three films with
Sony (so far only
Spider-Man: Homecoming and
Spider-Man: Far From Home fulfill that contract).
Sony can use him again, even if
Marvel Studios and
Sony don't renew their deal. This means that if there is a reboot, it'll likely be a soft one and certainly one the audiences will be more confused by. If anything, in this scenario, I'm undervaluing just how well
Sony's universe would do with Spider-Man being yanked out and them making their own film with Holland. Still the MCU direct connection is valuable and they won't be willing to sever it unless there is a big upside for them in doing so.
If
Venom fails, there will be a bigger upside in pulling Spider-Man from the MCU for their own universe of films. If
Venom is successful, even if we never get to see Spider-Man in films featuring characters that were introduced in his own comic book,
Sony has nothing to gain from pulling Spider-Man out of the MCU. We shouldn't be afraid of what happens if
Venom succeeds; we should be afraid of what happens should
Venom fail.