The news/ramifications/fallout from last night's bombshell announcement that Sony would let Marvel play with their Spider-Man figures (so to speak) continue! The WSJ confirms Spidey will make his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Captain America: Civil War while Sony's Sinister Six movie is back on!
The Civil War news isn't exactly earth-shattering, seeing as Spider-Man played a major role in the comic arc and it's one of the next Marvel movies to go to production (it's way too late to have Spidey pop up in Age of Ultron, and the only other alternative is Thor: Ragnorak, which isn't exactly a natural fit). Of course, in the Civil War comics Spider-Man joins Iron Man and the superhero registration side, publicly unmasks, and his life gets so terrible he has to make a deal with the devil to retcon it (along with trading his marriage for the life of his elderly aunt). So it seems like it would be an equally terrible idea for Marvel to include this moment in a live-action film as it was for the comics, so hopefully the studio has other plans for the webslinger's inaugural appearance.
As for Sony's side of things, the WSJ says the studio "will rethink its approach to Sinister Six, which remains in development, in light of the new agreement with Marvel", which everyone is taking to mean the movie is still on. The smart money is that Sony will add Spider-Man to the film, which as you may recall Sony originally planned to make without Spider-Man in it, as if that wasn't the dumbest goddamn thing any movie studio had ever thought. If Sony wanted to start a new Spidey franchise co-existing with the MCU, it couldn't do much better than to skip a third origin story, and head straight into one of the most action-packed battles of the web-slinger's career.
And as for the rumors that Andrew Garfield is getting dumped as Peter Parker, The Wrap says they've confirmed he's out — and that his guest appearance in Civil War will be followed by a stand-alone Spider-Man movie from Sony, which would presumably mean we won't be getting a new Spidey film until 2017 at the earliest.
But as for everything else? It's still just a big pile of question marks: How much creative control does Sony have? Does Marvel have any input into the Sony-produced movies? Can Sony use parts of the MCU in return? Will the studios skip the origin story this time around? Who will be our next Spidey? Is there any chance Spider-Man won't be a white dude? We'll keep you updated.
[Via Uproxx]