Summary

• Sony had the opportunity to acquire all of Marvel Comics' character rights for $25 million but only paid $10 million for Spider-Man, missing out on a chance to create their own Marvel Cinematic Universe.
• If Sony had taken the $25 million deal, the superhero genre would be completely different today, with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man potentially setting up the MCU instead of Iron Man.
• If Sony had taken the deal it would've prevented characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor from shining on the big screen the way they did through the MCU, but they still have their own Spider-Man Universe and collaborate with Marvel Studios.

While the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of Disney's biggest franchises, Sony was very close to having all the character rights instead. Since 2008, the MCU has grown to become the most successful interconnected superhero cinematic universe as they continue exploring numerous heroes and villains from Marvel Comics. Despite having had to sell a lot of major character rights back in the day, most of them are finally back under Marvel Studios, except Spider-Man, which is still owned by Sony. However, it turns out that Sony could have had all the Marvel rights if they had taken action, thus getting their own MCU.

During an episode of The Journal (via Bleeding Cool), a former Sony junior business executive, Yair Landau, revealed that Sony Pictures had the chance to acquire every Marvel Comics character for only $25 million when they were going for the Spider-Man rights. (Comparatively, Disney acquired all of Marvel for $4 billion in 2009, though it included much more than character rights.) The Sony team at the time saw no value for other characters who weren't Spider-Man and only paid $10 million, which means they could've acquired the rest of Marvel's character rights for only $15 million. Landau shared the following:

[Marvel] had just emerged out of bankruptcy. They had no cash, and they knew we had a sliver of the rights. And they also knew, obviously, that we were very interested in making Marvel movies, so they came to me, and we negotiated a deal for 25 Marvel movies for $25 million. Every single character that they controlled was on the table as part of that deal. The collective [Sony] team decided they didn't care about the other Marvel properties, that they didn't want to invest in them. I was told, 'Nobody gives a shit about anybody but Spider-Man.' I thought they were idiots; that's what I thought. My marching orders were to go back and just get Spider-Man.

What Sony's Marvel Cinematic Universe Could Have Looked Like

Had Sony Pictures actually gone for the $25 million deal, the superhero genre would have looked entirely different today, especially on the Marvel side of things. It begs the question of how they would have made their own MCU, especially as 20th Century Fox would never have gotten the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man could have essentially been the film that set up the MCU similarly to what Iron Man did in 2008.

From there, the organic direction would have been to introduce the X-Men, who could have been explored through the Spider-Man movies, as Peter Parker has ties to the mutants in the comics. Fantastic Four could have also been set up as a superhero team operating in New York, while giving Spider-Man and other Marvel characters a group to work with before eventually the Avengers were formed as a team. But at the same time, it likely would have prevented characters like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor, who weren't even considered A-list characters before 2008, from shining on the big screen the way they did through the MCU.

This is the real world's ultimate What If...? scenario because Sony having its own MCU instead of Marvel Studios (and eventually Disney) is a reality that could have been an interesting one to follow, especially today. For only an additional $15 million, Sony could have defined the superhero genre, to say the least. Nevertheless, Sony's Spider-Man Universe is still happening, while they also continue to collaborate with Marvel Studios for future Spider-Man films with Tom Holland in the MCU.

Source: The Journal (via Bleeding Cool)