The Spider-Man deal between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures has broken down - so just what can the separate studios do with the wall-crawler now? Marvel sold the film rights for Spider-Man back in the 1990s, and as a result their most marketable hero is technically a Sony property. All that changed in early 2015, when Marvel and Sony reached an unprecedented deal that allowed Spider-Man to be rebooted - for the second time - as part of the MCU.
That agreement has proven to be a profitable one, but unfortunately, the integrate Spider-Man into the developing Venomverse. The situation is something of a tangled web, with legal rights constraining both studios going forward.
Fortunately, it's possible to deduce just what Sony and Marvel can do with Spider-Man. Sony was hacked back in 2014, and a wealth of documents were distributed online. They actually included copies of their Spider-Man contracts with Marvel - including the last version before the Spider-Man deal. It's reasonable to assume that, now the deal has broken down, the rights have reverted to something similar to that 2014 contract. So let's explore just what each studio can do.
What Marvel Can Do With Spider-Man
Norman Osborn as the next major villain of the MCU, but - barring some sort of renegotiation - that can be ruled out.
Moon Knight. Presumably that would be a subject of discussion between Marvel and Sony.
Interestingly, there are a handful of characters who are shared between the two studios. Under this old contract, both studios had the right to use the Kingpin; that's probably still the case, given the Kingpin was the primary antagonist in Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. Another anomaly is Jessica Drew; Marvel can use her as a private detective or spy, so long as they never give her the Spider-Woman codename. Meanwhile, Sony gets to use her as a fully-fledged superhero if they so wish.
What Sony Can Do With Spider-Man
Sony has exclusive rights to all Spider-Man's ing characters, and even to all the various heroes and villains who have been introduced in books starring the web-slinger. The contract goes on to detail specific locations and organizations; the Daily Bugle, the F.E.A.S.T. homeless center, and even the Daily Globe are Sony properties.
But Sony does have certain limitations as well. They can never explicitly reference the MCU characters Spider-Man has encountered; while they can make allusions to them, they can never be too explicit about referencing characters like Thanos, Iron Man, Happy Hogan, SHIELD, Nick Fury, or Maria Hill. No doubt that will cause problems if Sony does wish to continue the narrative begun in Spider-Man: Far From Home were technically produced by Marvel Studios on Sony's behalf, and thus are counted as Sony movies. That potentially means Sony could use flashbacks of Iron Man flying alongside Spider-Man, and simply never name the character; the average viewer wouldn't even notice, and the story would appear to be continuing seamlessly. This will likely be one for the lawyers to work out.
It's become clear that Sony has the rights to produce Spider-Man content across a range of mediums; as well as movies, they're known to have both live-action and animated Spider-Man TV shows in the works. This corresponds with the old contract, which allows them to produce both films and TV series, although every animated show must have episodes over 44 minutes in length.
Of course, there are certain caveats that have to be made. This contract is an old one, which means details could have changed; at the same time, though, they're unlikely to have changed much, given Marvel and Sony were focused on their new relationship. Furthermore, it has to be noted that the two studios could still come to other agreements. A deal between Marvel and Fox allowed relationship between Marvel and Sony hasn't soured too much, they could make similar micro-agreements that give both studios a little bit more flexibility.
