As you may remember from the Christmas break, we were reportedly due a Spider-Man Far From Home trailer back in December. After complete silence the rumours surfaced again and it was eventually released yesterday after teasing from Tom Holland on Twitter - which you can check out below.
The film has caused a tide of social media discussion as fans are debating over whether or not the film takes place before or after Infinity War and what the fate of Tony Stark is. As characters who were seen during to dust Infinity War are now seen alive and well again back up to their usual antics. For a deeper discussion into the marketing issues refer back to my post here which was about the culmination of Phase 3 and the start of Phase 4.
The trailer is a surprise as it was officially confirmed by Kevin Feige that the film would be taking place after the events of Endgame and will start minutes after the films climax. This is not only problematic for audiences but it may underpin the climatic events of Endgame. This is not Marvel's fault however, as if you look closely at the trailer Sony is the first company title card. The MCU has a vast amount of film rights and with X-Men appearing due to the Fox merger there is still a series of characters Marvel doesn't fully own. So what does this mean and what are its effects? Well lets take a look.
(A simplified graphic detailing Marvels Character film rights)
1. The Hulk; Whilst he has been a staple of the MCU, Marvel only has the rights to Bruce Banner and the Hulk as long as he appears alongside a roster of other well known characters such as the Avengers. If Marvel wanted to have him in a starring role then legally the film would have to be distributed by Universal. Hence before the Disney merger there was The Incredible Hulk in 2010, and even before Disney, Iron Man was once a property under Paramount but owned by Marvel. To keep it under their empire, Disney have not been wiling to do a solo Hulk film to maximise their own profits and the character has since tagged along with Thor in Thor: Ragnarok. Adapting the famous story-line Planet Hulk to work around the rights issue. Marvel clearly don't have any immediate plans to purchase the rights from Universal so as it stands the Hulk remains with them alongside other minor characters.
2. Spider-Man and Co: Spider-Man was one of the franchises that was sold off by Marvel in 1999 as they were close to bankruptcy. They sold them to Columbia pictures, a subsidiary of Sony in the hopes they would produce the next blockbuster. The sheer scale of the franchise is said to be over 900 Marvel characters. There are a handful of shared characters, who rights are not so complex but there are heroes or villains which are either shared or blocked off completely. With either Marvel or Sony being completely blocked off from using them.
There are specific time limits associated with the rights. Sony need to release a new Spider-Man movie at least once every five years. Failure to do so means the rights revert to Marvel. Hence the two previous Spider-Man franchises; Sami Rami's and The Amazing Spider-Man led by Andrew Garfield. As Sami Rami's Spider-Man 4 fell through in 2010 and the last one was in 2007. So the Amazing Spider-Man had a quick turn around time and released in 2012 to avoid losing the rights. The new franchise was meant to launch a Spider-Man shared universe around the Sinister Six but the sequel bombed heavily at the box office and was slated by critics. Sony was under pressure and it failed. With it now bombing, Sony needed to pivot and work out how to save itself.
(There was a heavy demand from fans back in 2012, who wanted Spider-Man to appear in the Avengers. As a result there was a variety of memes spawned in a similar vein to above)
In 2014 Marvel noticed the sinking ship and struck a deal with Sony that would allow Spider-Man to appear in Captain America: Civil War. Sony was initially unconvinced but it became public after the Sony studio leak and they committed under the weight of the pressure. In the deal Sony finance and distribute the films and Marvel produce them; meaning Sony gets all the profits from the films. In return Marvel can use the character in the larger scale films such as The Avengers and profit from any merchandise associated with the Spider-Man franchise so both studios win.
Sony is still allowed to make its own universe of characters like Venom, which is now getting a sequel moving forward and want to use other secondary characters like Kraven and Morbius to form their own box office hits. But there is a catch, Spider-Man cannot appear in them which makes it challenging for Sony and required several rewrites for Venom to make sense in its own right and Sony's characters won't appear in any MCU films. Sony is holding out and hoping their franchise will one day be retconned into the MCU in a future deal. As Tom Holland is contracted for six Marvel films and there is presumably a limit with the deal between the two. So when renegotiation's will need to happen Sony may have to strong arm Marvel as they will be in a stronger position and won't need to reboot once again. And there is only so many times the franchise can be rebooted without fans getting bored as this is now the third iteration.
Sony has also been having its own success with Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse an animated film following the Miles Morales Spider-Man. This has no ties to the MCU and has allowed Sony to have its own freedoms as there will never be an animated Spider-Man tied into the MCU so without the complex rights we might not of had the chance to see it on screens. As Marvel continues to expand it's empire it will have to continue to renegotiate its deals if they want to carry on at the rate they are going. But at the end of the day, they now have plenty of properties to work with.
With Marvel now reclaiming its properties and continuing to dominate the box office, maybe Sony should stick to animations and look at areas that Marvel isn't doing to help break the mould. As the film has now gone on to win several awards such as the Golden Globes for Animation and Best Animated Feature by the African-American Film Critics Association (AAFCA). Whereas neither Sony or Marvel has won a best featured award for live action.
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