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EW: Kevin Feige and Tom Holland talk Spider-Man
- Thread starter Halbrand
- Start date
I'm clinging onto hope. Sony cannot just ignore the influence of the juggernaut that is the MCU.
They're not ignoring it, they think they can replicate it.
But they can't. Spiderman is one major character with a bunch of supporting characters. The MCU is made up of major characters and supporting characters on top of that. It's not the fucking same.
So are they really betting on the notion that audiences will flock to the theaters to see the shared universe of Spider-Man and Morbius: The Living Vampire?
Imagine Spider-Man 3 going up against Black Panther 2 on the same weekend.
It might not be a one hit K.O., but Spider-Man is walking away hurting.
Even going against Doctor Strange 2, I think there is a chance Spidey could lose the opening weekend battle, and depending on the approach to DS2 (which I think will be like an event film in it's scope like the event film of Phase 4), it's legs could be hurt and it could just end up not grossing as much.
Remember people doubting Captain America 3 would have enough to top Batman and Superman together for the first time in a movie together with Wonder Woman as the cherry on top, but even WB ended up blinking and moved the date when they saw TWS and GotG's success, even before it was confirmed that they were working on Civil War.
It might not be a one hit K.O., but Spider-Man is walking away hurting.
Even going against Doctor Strange 2, I think there is a chance Spidey could lose the opening weekend battle, and depending on the approach to DS2 (which I think will be like an event film in it's scope like the event film of Phase 4), it's legs could be hurt and it could just end up not grossing as much.
Remember people doubting Captain America 3 would have enough to top Batman and Superman together for the first time in a movie together with Wonder Woman as the cherry on top, but even WB ended up blinking and moved the date when they saw TWS and GotG's success, even before it was confirmed that they were working on Civil War.
No. He actually believes his own hype that much. It's different even of the result is the same
Animated Spider Man in the MCU with everyone else being live action. Space Jam it.
His playbook consists of 1 major player + his supporting. My point stands.
Who owns the TV rights for Spider-Man?
If Marvel owns them, then what's stopping them from making a Spider-Man "TV Show" for Disney+ starring Tom Holland that takes place in the MCU?
If Marvel owns them, then what's stopping them from making a Spider-Man "TV Show" for Disney+ starring Tom Holland that takes place in the MCU?
This isn't *exactly* true. Spider-Man is one of the few cases where the book has been running long enough that there's not a big difference between "supporting character" in a spider-book and a "major character" somewhere else. Many of the characters Marvel is or have been floating to get their own series have substantially LESS exposure than a very large chunk of the Spider-Man cast. The GoTG are obvious examples, as is Moon Girl.
Spider-Man had so many books and so much IP that during the late 90s Marvel Split editorial duties among several group editors in chief- One for the Avengers and the Cosmic stuff, One for all of the X-books, One for the Spider-Books, and two lesser editors for the "edge" line and the epic comics line.
Spider-Man has several variants of Parker that have been shown to be able to carry books independent of him. 2099, Miles Morales, Spider-Gwen, and Mayday Parker. Spider-Verse being a success makes it pretty easy to introduce these as standalone titles if they want. 2099 and Spider-Gwen also potentially complicate things by having alt-universe versions of characters that would not usually fall under Spider-Man exist as major parts of their books. Dr. Strange is a Marvel Character for instance, but Strange 2099 (an ENTIRELY different but functionally identical character) belongs to Sony.
Also noteworthy- Punisher started off as a Spider-Man villain, as did Kingpin, Black Cat and Venom. All four are major characters in their own right outside of Spidey's books and can/could carry their own titles just fine.
The rights to New York's criminal underworld is also conveniently tied up in the Spider-Books since that's where most of them came from. Hammerhead, Silvermane, The Rose, Tombstone, The Enforcers, the Maggia in general, etc. If Sony WANTS to make a crime centric film full of villains they can easily do so- the script to one such film pretty much exists in the form of the Superior Foes of Spider-Man book, published a couple of years ago to critical and commercial acclaim. Spider-Man is virtually absent from the story entirely. it's all supporting cast around a heist.
The Netflix shows were all a more-or-less interconnected universe amongst themselves, concentrating on the NYC area criminal underworld using Sony's C list to do it. Could you pull off a similar theatrical universe with the Spider-Man IP? Yes you could, if you weren't an idiot. Spider-Man has MOST of the NYC criminal IP tied up in it, outside of Kingpin.
The question isn't if Sony CAN pull off an interconnected universe (they can), but whether they're skilled enough to do it. It's been a talent problem, not an IP or concept problem for them.
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This is how I feel. Spider-Man, outside of maybe X-Men and Batman, is the character best suited to have so many stories brought to life within it's own universe.
I just don't believe that Sony is capable of truly doing it justice. Lord and Miller are in control of all Spider-Man TV productions. Why Sony won't take that mentality to it's motion picture group in it's approach of the upcoming films is beyond me.
I read your post and I'll be honest I can't argue with all that shit. All I'm going to say is that as a consumer, I want Spiderman to be a part of the same universe as all the rest of the Marvel characters, same goes for Venom. I don't like the idea of him being in his own shared universe that isn't shared with the rest from the comics.
Spider-Man does have multiple heroes under his license, but whether a bunch of independent stories based around people with the same general powerset as Spider-Man, and his bad guys, has enough steam to be as enduring as the MCU has is something I highly doubt.
I honestly don't really think it's a "Sony" problem per se, but a Hollywood problem. ALL of the studios seem to be completely dysfunctional and ill suited to handle IP like this. Relationships and connections govern what gets made in Hollywood more than talent does- and inevitably this will result in projects that don't make any sense, or people that have no business near a motion picture "failing up" and getting handed another one after numerous box office bombs.
Fox was demonstrably worse at handling the Xmen and FF franchises.
Warner has been screwing up the DC properties since Superman 2.
If you look at non-comic properties it doesn't get much better. For every good Steven King adaptation (IT) there's one that goes off the rails (Dark Tower).
Harry Potter turned out well, but Fantastic Beasts was a mess.
The Lord of the Rings was great, but the Hobbit was not.
Star Trek was inexplicably watchable only every OTHER film for years.
The Star Wars original trilogy was a masterpiece followed up by three films of commercialized nonsense.
That the MCU exists as it does is amazing, because there are so many scenarios where the entire thing almost fell apart. Iron Man and Incredible Hulk were financed on a last minute desperate deal with Paramount that could have bankrupted Marvel completely. even after the success of Iron Man and Avengers, Perlmutter was notorious for meddling with the films and talent to the extent that Feige threatened to walk out- and Inhumans (remember that?!) was HIS pet project.
Spider-Man has a ton of heroes and anti-heroes under his license that have completely different powersets than he does. You could mine it for a very long time just as you could the X-men or Avengers IP. The general public hasn't heard of them, but I think we've established by now that whether or not the general public "has heard of" a character isn't important- only the concept is.
It takes talent and someone who really has an interest in the IP to pull something like this off though.
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I... I just don't see it. It's not like Marvel has rushed to make a War Machine movie. Hell, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk are the first "spinoff" characters to get their own independent project. Even someone Black Cat doesn't have the footprint or even the depth of character to make it as her own franchise, even if she splits the difference with Silver Sable. After those two... who is there, really?
With the team behind Venom 2, it might end up being another Dark Knight type scenario. The movie has the talent needed to be one of the best superhero movies to date and should that come to pass, what a response it would be to many who are moaning and whining about how Sony can't do anything right.
Last I checked all the best Spiderman movies have been made by Sony, what's with everyone pretending as if that is not the case?
Anyways, if Sony aree serious about the SUMC they could create a competitive universe, they are certainly more capable of doing it than any other studio that is not Marvel.
Comic book readers are not the one that makes movies successful. Those characters don't need to be very well known, as long as they put out a good movie people will get to know the characters and will come out to watch the sequels.
Last I checked all the best Spiderman movies have been made by Sony, what's with everyone pretending as if that is not the case?
Anyways, if Sony aree serious about the SUMC they could create a competitive universe, they are certainly more capable of doing it than any other studio that is not Marvel.
Comic book readers are not the one that makes movies successful. Those characters don't need to be very well known, as long as they put out a good movie people will get to know the characters and will come out to watch the sequels.
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The MCU is literally built on the back of characters no one cared about. Forget Iron Man and Captain America for a second, since most people at least had heard of them.
We got films out of Ant Man, Black Panther, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Strange, and Captain Marvel. Captain Marvel wasn't just a property no one had heard of, it was a property that had repeatedly failed to get anyone interested in it despite numerous reboots since the 1970s. Carol isn't even the first Captain Marvel, she's something like the 5th or 6th and her books were struggling too before the feature film. Forget "depth of character" this was a character actively loathed by comic fans. Now she's A-list.
We got Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and an Iron Fist TV show on netflix for multiple seasons each.
We're getting a Black Widow Film, a Hawkeye TV show, a Moon Knight(?!) film, the Eternals, and Shang-Chi.
Saying Black Cat or Morbius "don't have the footprint" for a feature film while Shang Chi and the Eternals do is nonsense. It's about the concept, not name recognition.
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Concept isn't enough. Execution is important, and Sony consistently fails on that.
The least liked live action Spidey-Film (ASM2) did 700 million dollars.
Suicide Squad did 750 million.
Venom did 850 million dollars.
Aquaman did 1.1 Billion.
Execution apparently isn't that important.
An Aquaman movie without Jason Momoa would not have done nearly as well as it did.
Jason Momoa also starred in the 2011 Conan the Barbarian, which was a notorious box office bust that did 48 million on a 90 million budget.
And yet look at what happened to X-Men: Dark Phoenix. It's almost like these movies aren't guaranteed successes. There has to be something audiences want in them to get people to actually bother to show up.
These are still characters that have had multiple books. Ant-Man and Wasp are founding Avengers. They've always been on the short list for adaptations.
Morbius and Black Cat may or may not have had their own books, but their solo appearances are significantly less prolific than other characters'. They've never been pushed significantly, especially not in recent memory. The only Spider-Man characters who come close to that are Venom, Carnage, the other spiders, and Superior Octavius.
Sony isn't going to be able to wring blood from a stone. Something like Guardians of the Galaxy only worked because cosmic marvel had since been unrepresented, giving people a look at something so far unrepresented in superhero films and because the Guardians had been pushed a fair bit since Annihilation. I can't see people turning up to see a bunch of street level heroes, many of whom lack a unique gimmick, who are even bigger unknowns than they were. Not when they can get their fill from the competition who's got that more than covered with their stuff.
you're confusing the issue. Xmen: Dark Phoenix was NEVER going to be a successful film. It was a sequel to an X-men film (Apocalypse) no one liked in the first place, and rushed out the door as fast as possible.
The X-men franchise in GENERAL kept chugging along and racking up dollars despite multiple entries which weren't very good. "Last Stand" and "Xmen Origins: Wolverine" being two of the more notable failures. The concept though kept people coming back when the occasional hit film rolled by.
Comparing something like THAT to a hypothetical film Sony MIGHT make when Sony's track record has been nowhere near as bad as Fox's is off base.
None of this matters, because the broader audience isn't reading the comics. Your typical print book has a circulation of less than 30,000 copies. This is virtually nothing. The broader audience isn't reading it, even in cases of stuff like Guardians.
It's the concept that's important, not how many books are running or for how long. Half of the IP that marvel is pushing for phase 4 haven't been relevant for years, if at all and are LESS notable than a lot of the spider-man IP.
Comic book readers represent at most 0.5 percent of people that see most superhero movies, people see movies that are fun and enjoyable. Whether or not those characters have a book to their name is irrelevant to how successful or not their movies could be.
I don't think execution matters a ton for first entries. At least, not as much as it does with subsequent films.
SS, Venom, and to a lesser degree, Aquaman, all seem like movies audiences were always gonna wanna see the first movies for, because they're novel enough to get asses in seats.
That's how you get a BVS, followed by a JL.
If only we had a time machine to go back to the crazy days of 2005 and say things like "Aquaman was always going to be a movie audiences wanted to see" with a straight face.
They'd lock us up as lunatics. Aquaman was the JOKIEST of Joke tier comic book IP. The entire point of the Aquaman movie in Entourage was an in-joke about how James Cameron could make even complete shit into box office Gold because he was James Cameron.
What exactly does Black Cat have to offer? She's Shittier Catwoman.
Read a book. The character is fine. Hell, Catwoman herself is perfectly fine and you could have easily floated a movie off of michelle pfeiffer's catwoman in returns. Warner Brothers just wasn't competent enough to bother putting one together.
Once again- Marvel has already taken bottom tier IP far worse than Catwoman or Black Cat and made a mint out of it.
This is very true, but Sony doesn't have a Feige to make this all work. I doubt they've thought past "Get Spider-Man and Venom in the same movie"
A Spider-Man cinematic universe could make it own on his own for a long time based off the strength of characters in his world. I seriously doubt Sony can do it though, and nowhere near the level Kevin would've had the deal remained.
Sony doesn't need Kevin Feige. They just need someone competent making the films (and in some cases not even that).
Look at the grosses for the spider-films so far- (spider-verse aside, because that one is animated)
Spider-Man (821m)
Spider-Man 2 (783.8m)
Spider-Man 3 (890m)
ASM (757m)
ASM2 (700m)
SM:H (880.2m)
Venom (856m)
SM: FFH (1.1B)
This is...remarkably consistent. for some reason people are painting Sony as if they were Fox, throwing up box office bombs all over the place. Even the WORST of these films is merely mediocre, and nowhere near the level of something like Dark Phoenix, or F4ntastic. The 1.1B for FFH isn't even significantly higher than the 890m that spidey 3 pulled off a decade earlier without the benefit of inflation, 3D, and a weaker overseas market.
I would prefer that Spidey stay in the MCU- we'd get more access to characters and properties that way- but Spidey out of it isn't a box office disaster.
We will see, Sony's highs are higher than Disney/Marvel and their lows are lower too. What they need is consistency, consistently puting out good movies. That's one thing Marvel has done well, no movie in the MCU is "Great" and I don't think any has been "Shit" either, they've all just been good fun movies. If Sony could get in the habit of making good movies they can definitely craft a good world, who will bring about that? I don't know. Sony's own worst enemy is themselves.
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I can think of at least ten great films including Ragnarok, Infinity War, Endgame, Homecoming, both Guardians, Iron Man, Black Panther, Winter Soldier, and Civil War.
I guess we have different ideas of what makes a movie 'Great'.
It's a good thing I don't meant always, as in a fucking decade ago. I mean ever since he was largely considered one of the few highlights of a shitty Justice League movie, and people were excited about Wan directing.
But you know, whatever gets the narrative further.
That's not what I'm arguing, Spider-Man will make money regardless. While the Sony led Spider-Man movies will make money, that's not a guarantee for the rest of it. If they want a successful movie universe they still have to sell the public on characters that aren't Spider-Man or Venom. That means good movies, or at least movies audiences resonate with. Without someone like Kevin Feige at the helm, I don't see a Spider-Man cinematic universe lasting too long. Too many opportunities for Sony to fuck up. Morbius will be a good test on how they sell a lesser known character.
Based on their track record, I wouldn't bet on Sony.
I mean, director Andy Serkis isn't exactly a proven commodity and screenwriter Kelly Marcel doesn't have the biggest track record either, with her biggest credit admittedly being Saving Mr. Banks. And then of course there's Tom Hardy and Woody Harrelson.
In terms of creatives there's been far bigger red flags, but I'm....not exactly sure where the confidence is coming from? Unless I'm like missing a bit or something?
I would say this is the most important thing when it comes to these movies. There's gotta be some kind of draw, either in terms of concept or execution or whatever, that pulls people in to give a look, and Morbius isn't exactly the juiciest bone.
Is the character popular? Well, no, no one really gives that much of a shit about Morbius. He's a vampire who tangles up quite a bit with Spider-Man! That's....kinda neat as a side bit, sure, but as a standalone Spider-Man-less act? We're not exactly talking Venom levels of name recognition, here. Hell, he's about as C-list as it comes when it comes to Spidey villains anyway.
Is the studio making it popular? I wouldn't exactly say so. Like, Sony's rep with Spider-Man can be summed up as "we made a couple good movies, then we made several pretty bad ones, then we got our asses saved by the MCU." Granted, Into the Spider-verse was really good and a lot of people liked Venom, but people kinda treat animated projects differently and Venom still got mauled very badly by critics. I mean, the fact that the majority pretty strongly turned on Sony during this whole debacle kinda speaks to how much goodwill they have.
Maybe it's part of a franchise, like a cinematic universe? Because let's be real, a lot of the MCU's properties have that MCU pass helping them out, and Suicide Squad coasted pretty hard on "it's DCEU canon, here's Batfleck to prove it". But Sony doesn't really have that going. They say they do with this whole SUMC thing, but there's no actual plans beyond Morbius, Venom 2, and the host of other half-baked ideas they've cooked up. There's nothing to get invested in, beyond...what, the allure of seeing movies starring Spidey villains?
Does the lead star have any appeal? No, because it's Jared "Joker from Suicide Squad" Leto. Yeah, the whole "star actor" concept doesn't exactly work anymore, and Marvel's done a good job elevating various actors on their own, but if you have nothing else you should at least have that. Hardy was that for Venom. Hell, even Bloodshot made sure to have Vin Diesel attached, and that movie's probably never coming out. Leto....just ain't that. And the rest of the cast ain't setting off fireworks either (including Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith, who desperately needs a better agent).
TLDR: Morbius doesn't have any of the things that would warrant the level of audience enthusiasm that has been seen in other Spidey movies (which all have Spidey), in Venom (which has Venom), in the MCU (thanks to a decade+ of audience goodwill), and even the DCEU (with an iconic stable of beloved characters that people hope someday coalesces together). The most Morbius has going for it is the potential of seeing a bunch of Spider-Man characters eventually collaborate, something that you would only really have an idea of if you were paying attention online and something that might not even be fully in the cards yet.
You'll have to forgive me if i don't think "being the best part of a movie most people did not like" is the most compelling reason aquaman cracked the billion dollar mark.
Even Wonder Woman didn't get there, she was several hundred million short at just over 800m despite having the same argument in her favor AND a better movie.
Aquaman had a solid concept, charismatic lead, and happened to be a completely bonkers spectacle of a film which always plays well overseas. It likely would have performed similarly even without Justice League.
