Marvel Cinematic Universe general stuff

silverharp

Spiderman doesn't need MCU , no reason for Sony to have to go 50/50 on their strongest property. MCU has probably peaked , if anything MCU need Spiderman more

kerplun k

Madness to finish it like this.
Like all of the main Avengers, Spidey should get a Marvel trilogy. After that... fine, exit MCU and go back to Sony.

It's probably not a bad thing, I mean, if Sony produce a "run-of-the-mill" film, it will get slaughtered. Taking him back and just hooking him up with Venom wont do either. Spiderverse showed what they are capable of. I'd be happy to see them lean more into this type of storytelling.

Imagine the next film staring Tom Holland. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield back. Hell, they could even bring Robert Downey Jr back as another character.

bigslick

Jamiekelly wrote: »

Going by the site that broke the story (Deadline) i'm not surprised Sony turned Disney down. Apparently Disney wanted a 50/50 split, despite the fact that Sony owns the property rights and has had 2 successful Spiderman media properties on their own in the last few years (They just bought the video game studio that made the Spiderman game). Disney are trying to get Sony to take the PR hammering for this which is smart but ultimately it's their own fault for being too greedy.

The White Wolf wrote: »

.....

Madness all round. To be fair to Sony it does feel like Disney were trying to needlessly strong arm them by demanding a 50/50 split. Then again Sony have been leeching off the MCU brand for nearly 4 years while taking most of the profits. This is greed like I've never seen.

I have heard this 50/50 profit split a number of times, but from my understanding Marvel asked for a 50/50 split of the financing of movies, as up to this point Marvel had 100% funded Far from Home, & Homecoming (as well as their own Infinity & Endgame). Whether this means they also want a 50/50 split of profits from those movies isnt clear to me (but perhaps I missed something).

It seems to me Sony liked the set up they had (Finance 0%, get 95% of profit) and I dont blame them. Marvel do have the TV and merchandising rights, but bear in mind that they did create the character so this is not crazy.

Overall Sony seem to be coming off very badly in this negotiation, and hope they come back to the table to try and make a deal work.

speedboatchase

bigslick wrote: »

I have heard this 50/50 profit split a number of times, but from my understanding Marvel asked for a 50/50 split of the financing of movies, as up to this point Marvel had 100% funded Far from Home, & Homecoming (as well as their own Infinity & Endgame). Whether this means they also want a 50/50 split of profits from those movies isnt clear to me (but perhaps I missed something).

It seems to me Sony liked the set up they had (Finance 0%, get 95% of profit) and I dont blame them. Marvel do have the TV and merchandising rights, but bear in mind that they did create the character so this is not crazy.

Overall Sony seem to be coming off very badly in this negotiation, and hope they come back to the table to try and make a deal work.

I believe that Sony finances everything and Marvel receives 'five percent of first-dollar gross' and all merchandising revenue. Disney got greedy here. If an MCU-less Venom can gross 800m, Sony can get an MCU-less Spidey to 1bn, rather than gross over 1bn in MCU and hand over half of that to Disney.

Potential-Monke

It's disappointing from a fans point of view. With it all up in the air, it's impossible to know how this will go. I hope they can sort something out, Spiderman was a brilliant addition to the MCU, and while I could see the current Spidey managing on his own with Sony, I think it would be a complete waste to ruin all that build up and possibly have 1, 2 or 3 standalone films which probably won't work, Sony don't have a great track record of that.

According to Digital Spy, the following was the previous deal:

"A quick refresh of why a deal needs to be struck: Disney owns the merchandising rights to Spider-Man as well as 5% of first-dollar gross (the money the movie makes on its opening day) but not the film rights. Sony, under the terms of a deal made many, many years ago, finances the movies and also reaps most of the financial reward for their success.

Previously, the companies came to a limited-term agreement to share rights so that Spider-man could participate in Disney's MCU movies. That has now expired."

Seems like a fair deal all along, Marvel/Disney gave the rights to use Marvel properties (already established) in the Spiderman films, and Sony paid for everything. Now Disney want 50/50? No wonder Sony said jog on, going from 95% profits to 50% profits. Unless there was an agreement to 50% finance also, it's a no brainer from Sony to decline.

brianregan09

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I mean, I’m pretty sure Sony didn’t fund the thing out of the goodness of their hearts :pac:

Personally I think it’s quite hard to understate just what a remarkable oddity Spider-Verse is. It not only displays a sense of style and imagination leagues ahead of what’s happening in the MCU and its ilk, it is also a thrilling exception among American mainstream animation in general. While animation should theoretically (and practically, as is the case outside of mainstream American efforts) offer a bunch of opportunities for artists to indulge their creativity, the reality is almost all studio animation - Pixar included - conforms to a pretty standard and familiar aesthetic with minor variations. To see something as fresh and vibrant as Spider-Verse - more akin to the psychedelic hyper-stylisation of Masaaki Yuasa - is truly a rarity.

It’s still a very commercial effort and narratively nowhere near as radical as it is stylistically. But it struts in and comprehensively shames the live action output of Marvel Studios. If anything it’s Marvel who should feel no pressure: as they’re now basically guaranteed circa billion dollar hits they should be more comfortable experimenting. Alas not: almost all the films so far still conform to that same old bland televisual house style, and even the more distinctive ones pale in comparison to the animated superhero film that could. Even allowing for the different mediums of live action and animation, Spider-Verse raised the bar substantially. Maybe now as Marvel delve into more obscure properties there’ll be more risk-taking. The story so far offers little cause for optimism, outside of them hopefully fully letting Waititi off the leash.

Could the Spiderverse folk **** up the sequel? Sure: Sony has a patchy track record to put it mildly. But still give me another one over phase whatever.

I know this is a matter of taste but DC have been doing excellentl animated films for well over 10 years now and nobody takes much notice because of the **** show there live action films there are , Spiderverse didn't do it majorly for me in fact I think it was massively overhyped by many , I did like it but it wasn't revolutionary or anything along those lines, maybe it's just because I'm not a huge fan of the morales character in general, I'd rather see another 10 mcu films than another Spiderverse

And Venom which was there last live action effort it was barely held together by Tom Hardys performance I'd have no confidence in Sony going forward

Foxtrol

silverharp wrote: »

Spiderman doesn't need MCU , no reason for Sony to have to go 50/50 on their strongest property. MCU has probably peaked , if anything MCU need Spiderman more

That ignores everything we've seen. Sony's second attempt at Spiderman performed drastically worse than their first and this MCU version outperformed both. The Venom movie success was in part driven by the goodwill that the MCU Spiderman had built.

Without another reboot, I just don't see how Sony can continue with the current narrative without needing the MCU properties.

Zero-Cool

I love these pitch meetings and this is fairly accurate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twA9mV9R0hY

Agent Coulson

Sony's response
https://twitter.com/SonyPictures/status/1164036827667238912?s=20
https://twitter.com/SonyPictures/status/1164036829428850688?s=20
https://twitter.com/SonyPictures/status/1164036830573953024?s=20

Foxtrol

I understand them attempting to ship the blame to Disney but they could really do a better job with their spin than saying that it was Feige not having enough time being the being the main cause, which is clearly nonsense.

KSU

speedboatchase wrote: »

I believe that Sony finances everything and Marvel receives 'five percent of first-dollar gross' and all merchandising revenue. Disney got greedy here. If an MCU-less Venom can gross 800m, Sony can get an MCU-less Spidey to 1bn, rather than gross over 1bn in MCU and hand over half of that to Disney.

On the issue of Venom it should be noted that Marvel didn't have an Autumn release that year and only competitor in theatres at the time was Jungle Book and A Star is Born it transfered over into gross Box office of Aquaman as well doing surprisingly well.

I would expect that to take a hit going H2H against a big Marvel slot over the next few years. Feige also operated a budget which was almost half of what predecessors did for Amazing Spiderman iterations.

Also there are reports that Feige played a role in the Venom Franchise as well.

In term of the move it still could be beneficial to Sony as even with a fall in revenue generated they still potentially in the short term see increase profits vs a 50% deal of higher box office generation however it will also depend on how they can negotiate storyline when you remove MCU references and there influence on the character which could tie the hands of any director and screenwriter.

Potential-Monke

I've been thinking, it would be easy enough to write the MCU out of Spiderman. Dimension change, flippant references to 'guys I used to work with' and create all their own new characters!

Foxtrol

KSU wrote: »

On the issue of Venom it should be noted that Marvel didn't have an Autumn release that year and only competitor in theatres at the time was Jungle Book and A Star is Born it transfered over into gross Box office of Aquaman as well doing surprisingly well.

I would expect that to take a hit going H2H against a big Marvel slot over the next few years. Feige also operated a budget which was almost half of what predecessors did for Amazing Spiderman iterations.

Also there are reports that Feige played a role in the Venom Franchise as well.

In term of the move it still could be beneficial to Sony as even with a fall in revenue generated they still potentially in the short term see increase profits vs a 50% deal of higher box office generation however it will also depend on how they can negotiate storyline when you remove MCU references and there influence on the character which could tie the hands of any director and screenwriter.

Even if they somehow dig themselves out of the narrative hole they're in, the next movie still needs to be good. Fans are extremely annoyed with this decision, with talk of a boycott, so they have no goodwill to play with. Sony may still get more $ from the first movie, than going towards 50/50, but if the reduction in revenue kills this iteration, like the previous 2, then they killed a long term cash cow for short term gains.

Foxtrol

Potential-Monke wrote: »

I've been thinking, it would be easy enough to write the MCU out of Spiderman. Dimension change, flippant references to 'guys I used to work with' and create all their own new characters!

How? They've built Holland's version of Spiderman around his relationships with MCU characters, it would leave plotholes everywhere.

Even if this version of Spiderman was dragged into another dimension his first move would be to look for Stark/Happy/Fury/Avengers to try to get him home. You'd have to build in him losing his memory which means it isn't even the same character the audience has connected to.

Zero-Cool

https://twitter.com/Renner4Real/status/1163998333934813184?s=19

Agent Coulson

I'm sure Disney can afford to throw Sony a few billion to by the rights back.

It will pay off in the end and they made enough profit from buy out Marvel to do it.

Lithium93_

Disney to buy Sony just out of spite :pac:

And all will be set right again with Spidey rejoining the MCU.

kerplun k

It’s a precarious situation that Sony have put themselves in. They either wipe out the history of 5 films, 4 years of work and something thats made about 8bl in box office takings, that’s a lot of people that are used to seeing Spidey in the MCU, or they continue to work with Disney.

If Sony jump off the train now, they risk fan backlash, plus there’ll be a hyper focused spotlight on what they produce and huge pressure on it. If they play this wrong, they could risk rendering one of their biggest assets worthless.

One could argue that the biggest mistake Sony made was letting Disney play with Spidey in the first place.

Lithium93_

kerplun k wrote: »

It’s a precarious situation that Sony have put themselves in. They either wipe out the history of 5 films, 4 years of work and something thats made about 8bl in box office takings, that’s a lot of people that are used to seeing Spidey in the MCU, or they continue to work with Disney.

If Sony jump off the train now, they risk fan backlash, plus there’ll be a hyper focused spotlight on what they produce and huge pressure on it. If they play this wrong, they could risk rendering one of their biggest assets worthless.

One could argue that the biggest mistake Sony made was letting Disney play with Spidey in the first place.

Sony certainly have put themselves between a rock and a hard place with this bone headed decision.

KSU

kerplun k wrote: »

One could argue that the biggest mistake Sony made was letting Disney play with Spidey in the first place.

People forget that the studio was in trouble at the time this deal was done. The film division had a billion dollar write down and were producing throwing any crap at the window to see what stuck (Smurfs 2 and Ghostbusters remake anyone?)

https://www.awn.com/news/sony-takes-1-billion-write-down-motion-picture-business

Foxtrol

kerplun k wrote: »

One could argue that the biggest mistake Sony made was letting Disney play with Spidey in the first place.

Sony didn't really have too much of a choice. The attempt to reboot with the Amazing Spiderman movies basically destroyed public interest in the character. Without Disney they had very few options to rebuild that goodwill, especially with their need to release movies or lose the rights.

Disney came in with an overgenerous deal, they could have squeezed them for far more if they weren't on the clock for the endgame narrative. This time the shoe is on the other foot, as they don't need Spiderman for Phase 4, so they can try to push for what they deserve for their efforts and IP.

expectationlost

so is kevin feige involvement in the mcu itself changing (as Sony suggesting) running more of fox properties (not just x-men)

KSU

expectationlost wrote: »

so is kevin feige involvement in the mcu itself changing (as Sony suggesting) running more of fox properties (not just x-men)

No it is remaining the same. What they are saying is that Feige will just no longer work pro bono on projects outside Marvel as was the agreement with the most recent deal.

There is an interesting twist which has come to light through this. It appears that Feige has been working on all Spiderman movies even those long before he grew to prominence at Marvel. Seems as though he had minor producing roles on the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb iterations as well as Venom (though main person behind the latter 2 was Avi Arad only played minor producing role back then and on Venom)

Foxtrol

KSU wrote: »

No it is remaining the same. What they are saying is that Feige will just no longer work pro bono on projects outside Marvel as was the agreement with the most recent deal.

There is an interesting twist which has come to light through this. It appears that Feige has been working on all Spiderman movies even those long before he grew to prominence at Marvel. Seems as though he had minor producing roles on the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb iterations as well as Venom (though main person behind the latter 2 was Avi Arad only played minor producing role back then and on Venom)

That was reasonably well known from the Sony hacks when emails from Feige were released relating to Amazing Spiderman 2. Feige gave them a bunch of points that would have improved the movie but were all ignored.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/more-e-mail-leaks-reveal-kevin-feiges-notes-sony-everything-wrong-amazing-spider-man-2

KSU

Foxtrol wrote: »

That was reasonably well known from the Sony hacks when emails from Feige were released relating to Amazing Spiderman 2. Feige gave them a bunch of points that would have improved the movie but were all ignored.

https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/more-e-mail-leaks-reveal-kevin-feiges-notes-sony-everything-wrong-amazing-spider-man-2

I didn't realise that his extent even included the Toby Maguire Spiderman though I thought this was only coming to light recently

(might be mistaken here)

The White Wolf

Avi Arad....there's a name to strike fear into the heart.

Foxtrol

More insight into the problems going. Points to Disney looking for 30% co-financing than the 50% earlier reported.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/spider-man-standoff-why-sony-thinks-it-doesnt-need-kevins-playbook-anymore-1233644

Also, didn’t realise that the guy in charge of Sony, who thinks he can go it alone, was the guy that was in Fox and wouldn’t greenlight a Deadpool movie, decided on sewing Deadpool’s mouth shut in Wolverine Origins, and was in charge of the horrendous recent Fantastic 4 reboot. Spidey's in safe hands...

Agent Coulson

I'd have a good guess Amy has a big smile on her face now in her new office at Universal that she isn't involved and can't be blamed for this.

speedboatchase

Lithium93_ wrote: »

Disney to buy Sony just out of spite :pac:

And all will be set right again with Spidey rejoining the MCU.

Yaay for media monopolies so we can have our favourite action figure fight with the other action figure!

Lithium93_

speedboatchase wrote: »

Yaay for media monopolies so we can have our favourite action figure fight with the other action figure!

Was being sarcastic.


Thought the :pac: made it obvious.