It sounds a bit ridiculous that a movie that grossed $700 million was considered a flop, but Sony was banking massively on The Amazing Spider-man 2, and unfortunately despite making more money than most people could ever dream of, it was considered a disappointment.
Indeed its lack of ‘success’ led Sony and Marvel to start chatting seriously about a full-fledged crossover last year (small ones has previously been discussed but never came to fruition), but those talks fell through. At the time most people thought that the whole idea was dead and it was a pipe dream anyway that Spider-man would become part of Disney Marvel’s cinematic universe. After all, it’s rare for two entertainment behemoths to team up in that way, especially as Sony wouldn’t countenance anything that allowed Marvel final say over Spider-man while they owned the rights, which would inevitably cause issues fitting him into their superhero universel.
However now to many people’s surprise it’s going to happen, with the two studios announcing that a new Spider-man (Andrew Garfield is unlikely to return) will appear in an upcoming Marvel movie, before getting his own film on July 28th, 2017. Although it hasn’t been confirmed, the assumption is the Marvel film will be Captain America: Civil War, as Spider-man played a major role in that storyline in the comics.
Together, the studios will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger, but Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.
To show this really is a collaboration and not something that will see the two studios competing, Marvel has also moved many of its other movies out of the way of the standalone Spider-man film. As a result, Thor: Ragnarok has been moved from July 2017 to November 2017, Black Panther goes from October 2017 to July 2018, Captain Marvel will reach cinemas November 2018 instead of July 2018, while Inhumans is headed for July 2019 from its original October 2018 date.
Sony meanwhile has delayed its Sinister Six movie – which was due to be the beginning of its own Spider-man extended universe. They still hope to make the movie, but it will have to wait until the new direction for Spidey is fully worked out.