The deal signed by Marvel and Sony Pictures Entertainment over Spider-Man is enormous. However, while Sony Pictures is seeking to kickstart the Spider franchise, Marvel could be on the hunt to reclaim its most famous character.
Marvel and Sony Pictures are in this position today due to things that happened to the Japanese giant in late 2014. We suspect Marvel smells blood here and will one day aggressively make a move to pry Spider-Man away from Sony.
If The Hollywood Reporter is to be believed, then Sony Pictures would have never given in to Marvel if it still had control of the merchandising line.
The Spider-Man character is very popular, and thus the merchandise sales could have helped Sony a great deal, even if all movies released by the studio were garbage.
"Sony would never have made this deal if they still retained the merchandising rights," according to insiders who spoke with The Hollywood Reporter. "Even a poor performing movie could be saved by strong merchandise sales, and Spider-Man is one of the bigger brands out there."
If Spider-Man proves to be successful in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then there is no way Sony Pictures could break this deal in the future, even if it wanted to. The fans would be angry and, chances are, they would likely boycott any Spider-Man movie released after.
Therefore, as it stands right now, Sony Pictures has carved itself into forever working with Marvel or selling Spider-Man for a few billion dollars to end the partnership because things won't be smooth sailing forever.
On the other hand, things could end very differently. One source who had conversations with The Hollywood Reporter claims that if it comes down to it, Disney might choose to purchase outright should the Japanese company prove too difficult to coax.
Such a move wouldn't be so bad because Sony is the owner of several key properties, chief among them is the PlayStation brand and all the successful video games that come with it.
Disney wouldn't just regain Spider-Man, but a host of video games franchises that are capable of becoming box office gold with the right studio at the helm.
