Geek Out: Spider-man has Come Home

Spider-man has come home!!!

Yeah, I know last week’s edition was about comic book movies and I actually wanted to write about Nintendo this week, but this news is too good to pass up. Marvel and Sony have brokered a deal to share the movie rights of Spider-man. Fans around the world have been clamoring for Marvel to take back their properties from Sony and Fox ever since Marvel started making their own movies. Let’s be real, Marvel makes the best comic book movies. Every movie that they’ve released has been solid and they’ve taken obscure comics like Guardians of the Galaxy and made them household names. Sony, Warner Bros, and Fox are all playing catch-up right now and at this rate unless something major happens it’ll be awhile until they get on Marvel’s level.

Sony’s mismanagement of the Spider-man franchise began with Spider-man 3. It was obvious that there were too many cooks in the kitchen with that one as the movie had 3 villains. One would think that Sony learned their lesson, but no they repeated their mistake in The Amazing Spider-man 2. Sony rebooted the franchise, hoping that it would breathe new life into the popular property, but both Amazing Spider-man films disappointed both critically and financially. Honestly in my opinion I didn’t think the films were all that bad. The reboot got right what the first trilogy got wrong. The Spider-man in Amazing Spider-man films was much closer to his comic book counterpart than Tobey Maguire’s Spider-man. However, I feel that Maguire’s Peter Parker was much better than Andrew Garfield’s take on the character.

Spider-man is Marvel’s most well-known franchise, thanks to its massive reach. The 90’s cartoon is still etched in many fans minds to this day and the character himself is one that many young boys can relate to. Even though Sony has handled the franchise poorly over the last few years, Spider-man is still extremely popular and Marvel knows this. Incorporating Spider-man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a great opportunity for all sides. Fans get to see their favorite wall crawler next to Iron Man, Hulk, and Thor, Marvel gains another character to use for its MCU and Sony gets the chance to breathe life into its most popular franchise.

It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows though. Marvel’s plan is to introduce Spider-man in Captain America: Civil War which is great for fans, but the directors and writers of the film now have to introduce another new character. The film is already supposed to give audiences it’s first look at Black Panther, but now the movie is also debuting the new MCU Spider-man. This will be the third actor in 13 years to play this character. Rebooting a franchise is always tricky, but making audiences accept a new Spider-man just 6 years after the first reboot is a little much. Sony’s direction of Spider-man has been terrible and I’ve stated that already, but can’t the low box office numbers be attributed to franchise fatigue. There have been 5 Spider-man films in 13 years. Looking at the franchise overall shows that in that span there have been 3 animated cartoons and more than 2 reboots of the comic itself. While Spider-man is extremely popular, maybe he’s been exposed too much. I love the idea of Spidey appearing in the next Captain America and his inclusion makes perfect sense, since the Civil War storyline was at times centered on the character, but maybe they should wait a little and give fans time away from the character. Introducing Spidey so soon could be Marvel’s first mistake. Now you know what wouldn’t be a mistake though, figuring out a way to get Wolverine from Fox and letting Hugh Jackman fight the Hulk. I can dream can’t I?

I’m out!!!