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MARVEL UNIVERSE — News about Spider-Man finally joining his fellow mighty Marvel superheroes on the big screen is getting fans excited.
While both Marvel and Sony are avoiding specific details, fans hoping the quick-witted web-slinger will make an appearance in Marvel’s “Civil War” are a lot closer to seeing that dream become a reality.
“New Spider-Man Will Appear First in an Upcoming Marvel Film Within Marvel’s Cinematic Universe,” Sony announced via social media earlier this week.
“Under the deal, the new Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, in a film that will be co-produced by Kevin Feige and his expert team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago. Together, they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger. Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films.”
The initial report is a bit confusing, as it continually refers to Marvel’s “new Spider-Man,” while also mentioning Sony releasing another installment of its “$4 billion Spider-Man franchise.”
It doesn’t seem likely that audiences would embrace two separate cinematic Peter Parkers. And with the press release continuing that, “Marvel and Sony Pictures are also exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films,” early signs point to a single unified universe.
Whether that’s a universe in which Andrew Garfield’s Spidey is simply “new” to Marvel, or one where Feige’s cinematic take on Spidey becomes the continuation at Sony is a detail fans are still speculating about.
But however that turns out, we’re pretty happy Peter Parker finally gets to hang out with the Avengers.
Travis Poppleton has been covering movie news, film reviews and live events for Deseret News and KSL.com since 2010 and co-hosts the FlixJunkies podcast. You can contact him at tspoppleton@gmail.com.
