Sony Pictures has jumped on the Multiverse bandwagon and how!
After Marvel Studios and Warner Bros respectively announced their Multiverse concepts, news and rumours about rapid developments in Sony Pictures’ Spider-verse have started pouring in. And rightly so, Spider-Man has been one of the characters that have its own Spider-verse. Incidentally, in the age of battle for character rights, the web-slinger has managed to swing between Marvel Studios as well as Sony Pictures. Truly, travelling between movie universes before any other character.
After two attempts at the iconic character, Sony’s unprecedented Spider-Man deal with Marvel Studios lead to amazing results for the studio which is now developing its own movie-verse. Further, actor Jamie Foxx is set to reprise his role as Electro from Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man franchise for MCU’s Spider-Man 3 that has led fans to speculate a live-action Spider-verse is in making.
Fans found a renewed hope for their favourite web slingers’ future in 2019 when Sony and Marvel cut a new deal for Tom Holland to reprise the role in two future MCU movies. Sony Pictures — to whom Marvel had sold the rights of Spider-Man in 1996 after filing for bankruptcy — was able to get better-off Marvel agreeing to 25% profit share. While Avengers: Endgame had taken Spider-Man to new heights, Spider-Man: Far From Home has been Sony’s biggest movie to date (earning $1.1 billion worldwide). So both studios have immensely profited by the character. Thus, the deal does seem fruitful and natural.
Tom Holland In Sony’s Spider-verse
The two-movie deal includes untitled Spider-Man 3 (scheduled to be released in December 2021), which will be the last of the Tom Holland’s MCU Spider-Man trilogy, and another secret Marvel movie cameo where we will see the character. Thus we will definitely see Tom Holland as Spider-Man in the MCU for a few more years, that’s for sure.
On the other hand, the mantel will be passed from then on to Sony which will be bringing in Spider-Man in its own universe (or a live-action Miles Morales maybe) that deals with his arch-enemies. For the uninitiated, Sony has the cinematic rights to more than 900 Marvel characters that can be used without any input from Marvel. Nonetheless, Sony has decided to put many of Spider-Man’s friends and foes on the big screen for this.
Watch: Spider-man Official Full SONY-MARVEL Slate Breakdown
Called Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters or SUMC, the universe has already begun taking shape with Tom Hardy’s “Venom” (2018) and there have been rumours of Tom Holland and Tom Hardy coming together in for a future movie. This will no doubt bring one of Marvel’s greatest rivalries to the big screen. On the other hand, the trailer of “Morbius” (set to March 2021) has also been released with Jared Leto playing the role of the living vampire. This will be followed by Venom 2, which is scheduled to be released in June 2021.
Recently, Deadline reported, Sony has tapped actor-turned-director Olivia Wilde to direct a secret movie. The movie is centred on a female character (assumed to be Spider-Woman) and is being produced by Amy Pascal and story is scribed by Katie Silberman. Rumours also suggest Kevin Feige is indeed involved in the project, making Spider-Woman an MCU contender.
With villains like Venom, Morbius, Vulture, Carnage, Electro already present on screen and addition of Spider-Woman to the mix – fans have all the right reasons to look at Sony’s Spider-verse.
SPUMC has a Sinister Six plotline building along with a live-action Spider-verse with Andrew Garfield, Tobey McGuire and Tom Holland.
More SPUMC Projects in Pipeline
Beyond this, there are a couple of other projects lined up in Sony’s pre-production stages. These include Nightwatch, Kraven the Hunter, and solo movies on Silver Sable, Black Cat, Silk and Jackpot which will be exploring the origins of titular female characters in the Spidey genre. Parallelly, Sony has already begun production for Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse 2 which will release in October, 2022.
There is also an all-female spinoff in the works which is believed to focus on Spider Gwen and possibly Peni Parker.
So, it might as well be said that Spider-Man will be travelling from one universe to another i.e. Marvel to Sony. Yet, this may also mean that the two MCU movies maybe the end of Spidey in the MCU but only to have his reappearance in Sony’s Villains universe.
While many may find it hard to accept, let’s not despair as Spider-Man will be there with us for a long time, if not in Marvel then in Sony. And travelling between universes can be a lot cooler right?
