Sinsi

Over the past couple of days, we've had a mess of information on pretty much everything movie related due to the hacking of Sony Pictures over the film "The Interview". For us Superhero Movie and Comic Book Lovers, the biggest goldmine too come out of this hack has been all the information about the Spider-Man Film series, Sony's future plans for it, and Marvel Studios attempts to get it back.

It all started when the Sony Hack revealed that back in October, Sony Pictures president Doug Belgrad emailed Amy Pascal, Sony’s motion picture chief, about possibly allowing Marvel to produce a new Spider-Man Trilogy while Sony retains “creative control, marketing and distribution”. This basically meant that while Spider-Man would become a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Studios would be doing all the heavy lifting while Sony reaped all the benefits. In a second email, Pascal told a business associate that Marvel was interested in having Spidey appear in "Captain America: Civil War" which is due to release in 2016.

Unsurprisingly, it was reported that talks broke down and that Sony would be moving ahead with it's own, Marvel Studios-less, Spider-Man plans. These included an animated Spider-Man comedy film from Chris Miller and Phil Lord, Sinister Six, Venom, and a female superhero film. It was even later reported that Sony was looking to bring back Sam Raimi, the director of the first Spider-Man trilogy, to try and breathe new life into the franchise. All of these ideas were to be discussed at a "Spidey Summit" in January, where Sony executives would discuss the future of the franchise.

However, it only took til the very next day for Latino-Review to report that the "Deal is Very Much Alive!"

First they elaborated that the deal that had been rejected was not the Marvel produced trilogy, but rather a co-production deal where Marvel and Sony would split future Spider-Man film costs 60/40. With Marvel paying the larger sum, they would then retain control of the Spider-Man  property and have the option to have him cross-over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony Pictures initially rejected this plan, but Sony, the parent company, became displeased with Sony Pictures’s handling of Spider-Man. Sony felt that the Amazing Spider-Man movies had not been a high enough quality, and that the plans for the future of the franchise didn't sound so bright either. Sony felt the Marvel deal for Spider-Man was still on the table and they wanted to renegotiate it, feeling the 60/40 split could be negotiated, even going as far as to say that the need for Sony to keep creative control could be modified as well.

A couple days later, the Spider-Man information continued to leak out as we learned that the Venom film was effectively dead again. Sony executives liked the character, but didn't have faith that he could carry his own movie. As a result, they decided that he would be better introduced in the "Sinister Six" film. That film was said to feature Spider-Man teaming up with the Sinister Six to take down an even bigger enemy. The enemy in question would be either Carnage or Venom.

More importantly however, further emails confirmed that if the deal with Marvel Studios went through, Marvel intended to introduce a brand new Spider-Man, effectively booting Andrew Garfield from the franchise despite the positive reception to his performance as the character. Columbia Pictures president of production Michael De Luca thought that a "Captain America: Civil War" cameo could spark new interest in Spider-Man and felt it would excite fans enough that they wouldn't need "Sinister Six" to re-establish Spider-Man before his next solo outing. De Luca was reportedly happy with whatever direction Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige chose for Spider-Man.

The same day, it was revealed that the Russo brothers, the directing pair that handled "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," had offered to produce new Spider-Man films for Sony, as well as confirmed they would be directing "Avengers: Infinity War" Parts I and II. Amy Pascal never replied to their offers to produce however. Additionally, Pascal reportedly begged Sam Raimi to help her with Spidey only to turn around and tell a Sony executive that she didn't need his help because he went "Joel Schumacher on the third.", a reference to Spider-Man 3's critical failure. Avi Arad also begged Pascal to green light on a Venom movie because merchandise based on the character is popular. Also, Motion Picture Group President Jeff Robinov warned Pascal not to make a deal with Marvel.

It was later revealed that, due to his negative comments about the film and poor attitude about the importance of a Sony Corporate dinner, Andrew Garfield had likely been fired from the role of Spider-Man as a whole.

Several personal email memos from Amy Pascal to herself were als recovered from hackers, they read as follows:

"cap thre only:
2. if we have spiderman in cap 3. what is our fee
and our back end. need script approval, casting approval of sm and aunt may and consultation of mays house in queens and any other spiderman locations we may need in future movies. also approval of new spiderman costume> how long is he is the movie? how closely does it follow the civil war story line? does the world find out who spiderman is? are there any other characters from the spiderman universe they are using? can we use one of the marvel characters in our future spiderman movies not produced by marvel.can we use cap to set up ss? can drew work with the russos to get this done? are we renting him out?

        current state of spiderman merchandise...where were they in 2007, 2011, 2012 and 2013, 2014....we need a base to measure this by? will it increase the value of not just spiderman but the other characters as well. can we put a value on this? what is the cap america merch? avengers? iron man?

        how can we put a box office value on allowing spiderman to be in cap? what is the good publicity worth to them and their movie and what is the opposite worth to us? can we put a box office value on putting spidey in their movie? not free.

how do we participate n the process. read the script. meet the russos. early cuts of the movie various approvals

    one time spiderman movie:
    have to commit to a release date in 2017 which means we need to be shooting in winter 2015-2016

    we finance the movie entirely and approve budget
    we retain casting script director and budget approvals

    marvel isnthe producer of the movie only and disney gets the merchandising and they help us like they did but even more so

    we market and distribute the movie.....they have no approval of the marketing budget.

    they have consultation in marketing materials because they are really good bu they dont have a tie breaker



    would we have to dismantle ss?

    can drew goddard write the sm original?

    who would direct the sm movie?

    what do we do with matt tolmach and avi?

    they can not put spidey in future spiderman movies or team ups.

    we need to keep animation rights for a theatrical relaesse spiderman move to be directed by lord and miller

    we need to be able to make spiderman movies after this movie

    we need to be able to make the girl team up movie

    is it possible to put spidey in worlds without other characcters once we is with iron man and cap

    can we have him in cap and then 6 months later in ss

    comingle everything

    we have a right to co finance any movie that spiderman is in and get a production credit

    we get to make future movies with our characters and theirs in a collorative way but we dont need their approval

    marvel produces a bunch of spiderman movies for sony the way they do for disney....all spiderman dominent movie are financed snd marketed by us event though disney will have the mrech on eerything

    we can put the marvel and even disney logo on ours if we can put sony on theirs

    morale and publicity

    persception"

It seemed from the memo's that, beyond a lack of concern for her own spelling, there were a lot of complex issues behind trying to share the rights between Marvel and Sony that went beyond just Spider-Man popping up in Civil War.

The next day more tentative plans for a Spider-Man reboot were leaked. The first claim was that they wouldn't give the rebooted Spider-Man an origin story, as Jeff Robinov, head of Studio 8, felt it would be unnecessary. He then listed off several directors for a possible reboot, including  Brad Bird, Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee, Damien Chazelle, Joe Cornish, Glenn Ficarra & John Requa, James Gunn, Don Hall & Chris Williams, Phil Lord & Chris Miller, Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg, Colin Trevorrow, Edgar Wright, and David Yates. He even suggested using the "Kraven's Last Hunt" storyline and focusing on Spider-Man as an adult, rather than a teenager.

A later report quoted De Luca as saying "Seems to me maybe, since the Spider-man universe itself is deep, you guys should look at sinister six, new spidey, female movie and venom as linked pieces leading to eventual mega movie ala Feige and Fox and not stand alone single films. It's early in all these and you can still map out a blueprint for connective tissue." along with a reiteration of Amy Pascal claiming she really felt "in my heart of hearts, that the new spiderman in cap 3 could just appear in his own film, be it sinister six or a kick ass spidey film of his own, after that intro in cap 3 and people would be cool with it." These seemed to confirmed plans for a "Spider-Man Cinematic Universe" to compete or complement the Marvel and X-Men Cinematic Universes.

A final bit of news asserted the Kevin Feige would be attending the Spidey Summit mentioned earlier as a rep for Marvel Studios, and that he desperately wanted Avi Arad gone from any kind of Spider-Man production. However, the source for both these bits of information, appeared rather unreliable.

As a final bit of sad news, it appeared that due to emails sent back in October, that Marc Webb had been booted from The Amazing Spider-Man 3, and likely any involvement in future Spider-Man films.

So how much of this true and how much is bullshit? It's hard to say, but currently I just want to leave this article to act as a nexus for information on the Spider-Man situation, since there's a lot of info out there that isn't particularly centralized.


References:
1. http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/12/09/sony-marvel-discussed-spider-man-movie-crossover/
2. http://www.slashfilm.com/spider-man-animated-comedy-marvel-crossover/#more-268903
3. http://www.comicbookmovie.com/spider-man/news/?a=112303
4. http://www.comicbookmovie.com/spider-man/news/?a=112313
5. http://mashable.com/2014/12/12/spider-man-may-appear-in-captain-america-3-but-not-played-by-andrew-garfield/
6. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/13/exclusive-sony-hack-reveals-studio-planning-another-spider-man-reboot.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
7. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/14/exclusive-sony-emails-reveal-destiny-s-child-and-kanye-west-movies-and-spidey-cameo-in-capt-3.html?via=twitter_page
8. http://www.screengonzo.com/2014/12/14/scoop-a-meeting-of-the-minds-to-occur-between-marvel-sony-early-next-year/
9. http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/JoshWildingNewsAndReviews/news/?a=112389