Sony has purchased Insomniac Games, seemingly securing the future of the Marvel’s Spider-Man series. However, while this should be a time for celebration, fans are worried that an ongoing dispute between Sony Pictures and Disney could lead to complications for the video game franchise moving forwards.
Where do we even begin? Sony Pictures purchased movie rights to the Spider-Man character all the way back in 1999, and it went on to make multiple flicks starring Hollywood actors like Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. However, when rebooting the franchise in 2015, it struck a deal with Marvel Studios in order to incorporate the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
This resulted in a series of crossover cameos and two original movies, Homecoming and Far from Home – the latter of which recently eclipsed James Bond epic Skyfall as Sony Pictures’ highest grossing film of all-time. But a dispute between the Japanese giant and Disney could result in the character being removed from the MCU, as the Mickey Mouse maker wants to step up its investment in the character.
All of this, of course, has little to do with Marvel Games’ relationship with Sony Interactive Entertainment, which has seen Insomniac Games become the lead developer on Spider-Man games. Last year’s Marvel’s Spider-Man was a critical and commercial smash hit, moving a mind-numbing 13.2 million units to date.
It’s unlikely that Disney will be petty enough to cancel this contract, despite negotiations stalling with Sony Pictures over the movie rights. As it stands, Tom Holland is signed on to play the web-slinger in two more films, which at present will be produced without Marvel Studios’ involvement. Given the success of the standalone Into the Spider-Verse, this could yet be a blessing in disguise.
That said, the uncertainty does put a dampener on the excitement of Insomniac Games’ acquisition, but we can’t see Disney being petty enough to pull the plug on the most successful superhero game ever made. We still suspect Sony Pictures will come to some kind of compromise with the media giant, and Spidey will return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe at some point in the future.
[source bbc.co.uk]
Comments 56
I think this will be fine. Marvel's Spider-Man was a massive success, and Marvel Studios and Marvel Games are technically different companies.
If Sony lose the Spider-Man games it'll be a blow and a real shame. But Playstation and Insomniac existed before Spider-Man and they will exist after him as well.
pointless article
In the game sense I don't think there's a problem.
In the movie sense, however, I wonder how STUPID Sony Pictures actually is lol
It would be ludicrous if they did cancel the contract.
As for movie side we could now see the Venom and Spider-Man movies coming together , every cloud
@Amppari Not really, lots of people are talking about this.
@Amppari Mate, where do you get off
@AFCC I wouldn't say they're being stupid, to be honest. Disney is definitely trying to bully them, and they've just made a huge critical hit in Into the Spider-Verse without Marvel's involvement.
Disney's goal is definitely to take back the movie rights, so I understand why Sony Pictures is standing strong. Far from Home just made them a BILLION dollars. (Although obviously it could be argued that it wouldn't have been so successful without the MCU involvement.)
It's a tricky one.
@AFCC to be fair i have done some searching on this mater and the fault lies with Disney this time, from what i understand the last 2 films were made by Sony and all Disney did was essentially work with Sony to see that they fit within the MCU story and in exchange Sony let Disney use Spider-Man in Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame and they got 5% of the fist taking of Spider-Man films from Theaters (which is a bloody lot of money for doing bugger all) but after not only the success of Homecoming and Far from home but also Venom and Into the Spider-Verse (of which Disney and Marvel had NO imput) Disney now want a 50/50 split of all money earned AND full credit for Disney and Kevin Feige for future films even though they still want Sony to do all the work so Sony said "NO"
i'm with Sony on this one i'm afraid
@AFCC Apparently it's Disney's fault for offering ridiculous terms.
Don’t worry, people will now just call for Disney to buy out Sony Pictures for the Spider-Man rights and become even more of a monopoly. Sony were just protecting their own interests as 50% for Disney doing not much at all is pushing it awfully far.
oh no
@AFCC
But it’s not Sony creating the issue. Disney has changed their stance and are demanding a larger slice of the pie.
The #BoycottSony trend in particular was amusing. None of the useless sods could fathom that it was all disney's fault in their on-going quest to take over the world of entertainment!
@get2sammyb
Didn't Sony acquire Spidey as part of distribution deal with MGM anyway. They didn't really pay a penny to get him.
Regarding the game, I don't think Disney has any say actually.
@get2sammyb
"Although obviously it could be argued that it wouldn't have been so successful without the MCU involvement."
This exactly. That being said Disney was asking for too much.
It's going be strange watching future MCU movies that doesn't acknowledge Spidey and vice-versa.
With all this going on with Sony buying Insomniac, I wonder where my man @PS_Nation is. It's been a fair while since we've heard from him.
I'm not really concerned on the movie side of things since I don't watch too many movies nowadays, but it would be a real shame if something were to happen to a potential sequel.
Especially with how fantastic of a job Insommiac did with the IP.
@kyleforrester87 D r C o n n o r ' s c l a s s
Seriously though, it is a pity regarding the movies, but I am still hoping everything will work out. I reckon the games will be fine and will very much look forward to a sequel.
They could always do supaidaman instead.
So here's where I stand on this.
Yes, this is Sony's fault. At the end of the day, they own the movie rights, they make the final decision. They made this decision to stall negotiation. That was Sony's choice given the info they had.
Now does that mean the situation leading to that decision is their fault? No. That's Disney for putting poor terms on the table. Disney is at fault for leading to a decision that is Sony's fault of their own free will.
As for the future of the Sony's Insomniac's Marvel (Registered Trademark)'s Spider-Man (Registered Trademark) games....who knows?
Insomniac sucks... I don't really think that, I'm just bitter about not having a Spider Ham costume for the game.
"we can’t see Disney being petty enough to pull the plug on the most successful superhero game ever made"
The company that ghosted the X-men and Fantastic For years, you sure about that?
first of all, sony DOES NOT NEED disney/marvel studios input for a spiderman video game sequel. should disney not want to be involved in a sequel with insomniac, sony can carry on ahead without them. honestly, many capable comic book writers are available for hire and could write a good story for the game. spiderman stories are not shakespeare. it is more the setpieces and villains than the story itself. the future of the spiderman games will be fine, with or without disney's involvement.
that said, disney likes money. it is unlikely they would back out of the games series at this point... makes no business sense.
I’m sure sony already have contract in place before making the first ps4 game, I don’t think disney can just cancel the contract.
Disney wanted more money, Sony said no. It is all high stakes gambling. It is a bit gutting from a MCU perspective. Not sure how it affects the video game rights though. I bet anything that a Venom game is on the cards though...
@get2sammyb Well, I agree, but considering The Amazing Spider-Man 2 made them around 800 million in the box office without any Marvel involvement, they can definitely earn enough with the franchise by themselves moving forward. Will it be a critical hit with the fans? That remains to be seen.
And I don't think it should affect Marvel Games relationship with SIE on future Spider-Man games. I'm pretty sure a contract was already signed for at least another game if not two.
Obviously Disney/Marvel wants the rights of Spider-Man back which it makes sense they revive Spider-Man after the horrible amazing movies and Sony clearly has no idea how to make a good Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2 so in this case I think they should just let go the rights for a good chunk of money and keep working in something else
Yea Disney and Sony had a deal and were making tons of money but then someone at Disney woke up saying 'We need moar money' and questioned the deal. Classy Disney as usual.
I think they can't cancel a contract for a video game series just like that though. I hope so anyway.
SONY owns the spider-man franchise and is loaning to Disney, so they can't do nothing about it
@AFCC It's actually Disney's fault. They are trying to take over a lot more from Sony instead of just the deal that they had originally.
@AFCC Yeah so stupid not to agree with a 50% split.
Its not like Disney is a good guy hete.
Disney is a hair shy of becoming a monopoly, they shouldn't be given anymore of anything.
I don’t know how much of the content in the Spider-Man movies and games derives from the Marvel comic universe. But I doubt the Marvel comic universe is responsible for half of there sales.
I played Spider-Man because it was insomnia is next game and I like ratchet and crank. I assume some people played it because they were Spider-Man fans. Did anyone play it because they were avengers fans and Spider-Man was part avengers?
They should do a Venom video game instead for PS5. Have it come out around the Venom 2 movie. That would be sweet!
An investment in a studio like Insomniac costs quite a bit of money and it was a world-class dev team before Spider-Man anyway so this doesn't put a dampener on the acquisition. The disappointing part is we hadn't had a great, or even just above-average, Spider-Man game since SM 2 on PS2 until Insomniac's game came along. It's easily the best SM game ever made and I thought more respectful of the source material than MCU's Spider-Man movies have been. It'd be a shame not to at least let Insomniac and Sony make a sequel because billionaires who's families are already set for generations need even more money.
@Frigate Did you see the Marvel's Spider-Man sales numbers? They're definitely not ready to move on just yet.
Sony should not bow to Disney. Disney been a jerk in movies industry for quite some time now, trying to manipulate with their power and justifying their name as a greedy company. I think they forgot the Sony was the one saving them from bankruptcy.
What is more iconic hero than Spider-man? I only can think of Batman and he is in D.C.
I might be crazy, but imagine Spider-man moving to D.C. and being in one movie with Batman. That would be epic.
Don't let Disney push you around, Sony.
@GKO900 Yeah, because Sony definitely didn't just release an Oscar winning Spider-Man movie without Marvel's involvement.
Sure their output isn't perfect, but honestly neither is the MCU's. Outside of a few standouts (and a few stinkers) they're mostly pretty average and rely on their inter-connectivity.
I'm off to Disneyland in February. I'm going to show that big headed mouse in the castle who's boss.
Yeah Shrek mate. Shrek. That's Dream works mate. Way better than Frozen, Dumbo and Cars 2. What you got Mouse?
Don't speak mouse. Did you make the Croods? Haha no you didn't - that was Dreamworks too.
Oh I see you have Toy Story mouse. Hmmm nice try Big ears. But where's Despicable me? That's right you 4 fingered freak - the highest grossing animated series of all time is owned by universal.
So you see Mickey, I may have spent my life savings getting here and staying in your castle but I know the truth. Fantasia is the worst film I have ever watched!
Obviously I'm in the minority on this here but I firmly believe Disney is in the right. Marvel made Spider-Man: Far From Home the great film that it is. Sony collected the profits. There's practically no way Sony can continue from where they left off without Marvel, it'll have to be a soft reboot - same actors but everything else will have to be different due to rights. Sony rebooting Spider-Man has become a meme at this point.
To me it comes down to what's best for the characters and the story. And that's to leave Spider-Man where he belongs, where he was created. Sony doesn't put the story first in their films, as evidenced by their meddling in Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man 2; always dangling their finger on the reboot trigger when it doesn't work out.
Sony Animation did a great job with Spider-verse and Insomniac made an amazing exclusive game. Why can't Sony be happy with that and let Marvel do what they do so well with live-action Spidey? Sit back and collect those cheques. Seems suspect that they announce the acquisition of Insomniac the day before this all went down, like shielding themselves from Marvel being able to take the exclusivity rights. Sony also had plans for Spider-verse spin-offs on TV which they'd have to go through Marvel to get. So I don't think this is over yet.
@KingDedede Tell me do you even know the kind of deal Disney were trying to get Sony to agree to Their original Deal had Disney getting 100% of the merchandise money which is way more then the movies make plus 5% of the money made from First Day Ticket Sales for solo MCU spider man movies but with the new deal they want all what they already get but instead of 5% they want 50% plus they want 50% of Sony's Future Spider man movies like Venom 2 and Spider verse 2 movies that they have no part of So do you see why Sony said No to Disney
Sony owns the rights for Spider-Man. I don't think Disney is in a position to cancer a contract.
Disney struck a deal with Sony to include Spider-Man in the MCU for 2 main films + 3 crossovers (Civil war and Avengers 3-4). The IP still belongs to Sony and if they can't agree on a deal, it only means Disney will be out of the picture.
@AFCC
So Disney and Sony were making TONS of money with that deal. Then Disney went 'We want 10 TIMES more money!'
There are two answers to that and the stupid one is Yes.
"we can’t see Disney being petty enough to pull the plug on the most successful superhero game ever made"
Wouldn't trust the evil Mickey Mouse company as far as I could throw them!
In the end, Sony still own the rights to the Spiderman IP, including the movies and the games
don't care for spiderman, or the MCU, personally. i know the the avengers movies make a gajillion dollars, but maybe part of the success of the latest spiderman movie can also be attributed to the success of the game, and how well it seems to have been received critically. not just because he made a cameo in a couple of avengers movies. anyway, i'm sure spiderman can easily be successful without reference to the bigger mcu. SIEs deal to make games is nothing to do with the deals between sony pictures and disney, and i suspect spiderman 2 is probably a year into development already.. if disney were to enforce a shutdown on it, sony would sue for hundreds of millions in costs and lost revenue.
Agree with Sammy's comments that this is very much a play by Disney to try & gain
the Spiderman IP. I have little doubt the boycott sony hashtag & stories on several mainstream sites (eg: look at the number of spiderman stories on IGN vs Sony buying Insomniac), pushing the "Sony caused this", show the sort of media pull Disney has. Even with the Fantastic four/ X-men it'll take time to reboot them when Disney are already juggling Phase 4 MCU. Whilst a deal will probably happen-I can't imagine Mickey Mouse won't try to play hardball with Sony meantime...I hope Sony have John Wick on speeddial!
@get2sammyb yeah but see Venom...see the Spiderman with Andrew, see most of Sony Pictures movies...they are bad. They had a good thing with the Disney Deal and it probably made more money than they could hope for...I just don't get it! It's obvious Disney, the MASSIVE corporation will bully them until they want to sell the character again.
@AdamNovice 50/50 is not that bad if the movies keep making 1 billion+ dollars, right?
@lacerz from my understanding they had a 5 movie deal, so it's normal Disney wants to make a new deal now that Spidey appeared on 5 films (right?)
@FullbringIchigo understandable. But also, there's no escaping Disney grasp lol and the movies wouldn't be as successful without Disney or Feige.
@JJ2 thing is...Sony Pictures without Disney and without Feige will just reboot the character or do a sh**** movie like Venom, unless they do Spidey 4 with Tobey this won't be that good for them.
Edit: sorry for double posting but I seem to have caused some disturbance x)
The two have zero to do with each other. The media needs to stop posting clickbait.
@AFCC Its stupid to not give half of your revenue? Do you give half of your earnings to your coworkers?
@GodGamer no. But they don't do a good part of my work for me
@Frigate Sad you think that way, but thankfully you won't get your wish on that. They will likely push out a trilogy.
@AFCC Many companies aren't nearly as greedy as Disney, so it's quite a moot point. Sony owns the movie rights, so Disney isn't in any position to give such huge demands. Yes, they are part of the reason for the success of the recent movies, but that doesn't mean they should be demanding more. I can't imagine how much more that company needs with all these recent acquisitions of late( Fox being the most recent.) Disney should just give it a rest and lay off the bullying. They have more than enough already.
@InsertUsername the execs need the money obviously lol
I think both parts are stupid if they break the deal.
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