Real life sucks, and in this particular instance it does so because
‘Spider-Man’ is cancelled… wait, what?
I did not expect to return to my blog so soon, but the truth
is that this is big news – Sony and Disney/MCU have come to blows at last, and
Spider-Man is the biggest loser out of this fight.
On one hand, this is not too surprising: ever since our
friendly neighbourhood wall-crawler appeared in the CA: CW movie, it was because
of a Sony & Disney/MCU compromise, with neither side being too happy about
it. Disney/MCU does not like Sony, and it is reciprocated. For a while – i.e.,
until now, late August 2019 – the two sides have maintained some sort of a
truce, and then ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ came out into theatres, and it was
a success, including in a financial manner – and it was also one of the few
movies of the summer 2019 that Disney wasn’t in charge of, and didn’t get the
better deal. Therefore, they moved forwards and demanded a more 50/50 cut from
Sony, and when the latter refused, the partnership broke up. Now what?
There are not a lot of options, especially from an external
P.O.V. Disney/MCU is the bigger juggernaut out of the two, and they are big
enough to weather the fall-out if Spider-Man is gone.
…Here is the thing. Disney-Marvel MCU is, well, a marvel,
working like clockwork, especially when compared to DCEU proper. As Comic-Con
2019 revealed, Disney/MCU have phase 4 all mapped out and are ready to proceed
in 2020 with the Black Widow movie and onwards. The catch is that Spider-Man’s
character is clearly an important lynchpin in the upcoming phase 4, as the ‘Far
From Home’ movie has set him up: in his final battle against Mysterio, he takes
on both Thor’s and Captain America’s characteristics, let alone the Iron Man’s –
as the Iron Man’s heir, he may be the one to assemble the next version of the
Avengers, and if he isn’t in MCU anymore, it makes ‘Far From Home’ a big fat
red herring, and an unintentional one at that. As the ‘Dark Phoenix 2019’ movie
has shown, unintentional humor, red herrings and etc., are bad – ‘Dark Phoenix
2019’ in particular is probably the worst X-Men movie ever—but we digress.
Can Disney/MCU make its’ phase four without Spider-Man…period?
Yes, but odds are that it will be reminiscent of AoS from the second half of S2
onwards, and in a bad way. AoS constantly re-set and rebooted its characters,
changed its’ script, and went around in torturous circles; if it wasn’t Marvel’s
main toehold in the world of live-action TV, it would probably have never made
it to S6/7, as it did. And now that Disney/Marvel is coming into live-action TV
full steam, with Falcon and Bucky adventures, and Wanda and Loki adventures,
and what else have you, AoS is quietly being shut down, in summer 2020, the
end.
…But AoS is not
MCU, and for a while, (especially in S3-4), it was almost a separate universe
from the latter, and what it can make
work, does not mean that MCU can. If
MCU has to change its phase 4 from the plot where Peter/Spider-Man assembles
the next Avengers in a post ‘Far From Home’ movie, to the one where there’s no
Spider-Man per se, and someone else does his job, and ‘Far From Home’ just
vanishes as water in the Sahara desert does, yeah, it’ll be a bigger loss for
Disney/MCU than submitting to Sony’s demands – on par with Disney/SW alienating
and fracturing its’ fanbase since the beginning…but that is another story.
Put more succinctly, it all comes down to money. Disney is
greedy and does its’ best to make as much money for itself as possible. It is
very good at doing that, but sometimes it fails – i.e., the ‘Solo’ movie only
made millions of money, rather than billions, as Disney/SW had expected – and so
they proclaimed that the SW9 movie will be their last movie for a while… and
then that statement disappeared, rumors of more SW movies came forth, (though
they have also dissipated by now), and also for a while, people were bombarded
by SW comics, (though to what effect is debatable). Disney can do subtle and it
doesn’t back down without a fight from anything, but in Spider-Man’s case, it
isn’t dealing with public in general, or a specific fanbase in particular, but
with Sony, which is its’ equal, in a lesser sort of way. Sony knows exactly
what it is dealing with, and is not bowing down to the Mouse anytime soon. It
knows that it has the advantage – if Disney/MCU decides that it is done with
Spider-Man, then it is in a very uncomfortable position, (while Spider-Man can
always re-surface in Sony’s own live-action universe, cough team up with Venom
to defeat Carnage cough), as it will have to reboot and reforge its’ phase 4…and
if it doesn’t, it will have to keep on the wall-crawler on Sony’s terms, so
Sony wins again! Facing off with the Disney/MCU juggernaut, Sony became a smart
fighter, so there!
…Unfortunately, it leaves us, as well as Tom Holland and his
follow ‘Spider-Man’ (the franchise) co-stars hanging in the balance, as it is
still not quite known if they will continue working with Disney/MCU in the
future or not. Considering that we recently learned that Holland’s movie with
Daisy Ridley (aka Rey from the Disney/SW universe) was deemed unsellable, tough
break for him again, but that is real life. It sucks. Good luck to Disney and
its’ associates: it seems that even nigh all-powerful juggernauts can be
defeated on occasion, especially if their opponents are smart and know to hit
it where it hurts – in the money.
…This is it for now. See you all soon!
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