No Way Home & Morbius Proved The Spider-Man MCU Deal’s Flaw

The opposite box office results of Spider-Man: No Way Home and Morbius perfectly exemplify the biggest flaw in the Marvel and Sony Spider-Man deal. While not much has been heard yet about Spider-Man 4, including if Jon Watts will return or not, the Spider-Man franchise continues on the big screen as Morbius was released, and Kraven The Hunter, Madame Web, and El Muerto are all on different stages of production. The Tom Holland Spider-Man movies and the villains’ spin-offs, however, have a major difference in terms of production – one that helps explains why the MCU’s Spider-Man films are much better received.

From Sam Raimi’s first Spider-Man to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, every Spider-Man film was made under the total creative control of Sony. The studio had bought the Spider-Man movie rights in 1999, and from then on, the Marvel character became one of Sony’s flagships. However, after The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s underwhelming results and the constant comparison with how successful the MCU had become despite not having the right to some of Marvel’s most important characters, Sony and Marvel Studios reached a surprising agreement to have a Spider-Man franchise co-produced by both studios. Andrew Garfield was recast as Spider-Man, and Tom Holland starred as a brand new version of the character in Captain America: Civil War.

While the Sony and Marvel deal made it so that Spider-Man could finally interact with other heroes on the big screen, there is still a lack of synergy in how the Spider-Man IP is being developed. More especially, while the Spider-Man: Homecoming trilogy was helmed by Marvel Studios’ creative team led by Kevin Feige, the Spider-Man spin-offs such as Venom and Morbius are much closer to being Sony-only productions than part of the MCU. Morbius‘ failure at the box office, plus the overall bad critical reception of not only the Jared Leto film but the Venom solo movies as well, highlights how important the influence of Marvel Studios is in the making of the Spider-Man films. The Sony and Marvel deal is clearly focused on having Spider-Man being handled by the MCU, but it could have resulted in a much better Spider-Man universe if the spin-offs were also developed under the Kevin Feige umbrella.

For example, if Andrew Garfield ever returns as Spider-Man for something like The Amazing Spider-Man 3 or in one of the villains’ spin-offs, the same mistakes made in the original The Amazing Spider-Man franchise could happen again as that would be developed by Sony only. If, instead, Marvel Studios had a bigger creative role in the Spider-Man franchise outside of the Tom Holland films, a possible Andrew Garfield Spider-Man project and all the other spin-offs would sound much more interesting. Not only that, but a bigger synergy between Sony and Marvel would mean that moments like Morbius‘ Vulture post-credits scene, which did not make much sense given what had been established in No Way Home, would not happen.

Spider-Man continues to be the most important movie IP for Sony, but a bigger influence of Marvel Studios in the making of all Spider-Man-related projects could make the franchise even more successful after Spider-Man: No Way Home. Obviously, the Sony and Marvel deal goes beyond the creative matters and also has to do with financial terms, which makes any future changes quite complex to happen. Still, a more intrinsic collaboration between the two studios would be the best not only for Spider-Man but for all of his adjacent characters, thus avoiding the problems seen in Morbius.