Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters

What characters, overall, does Sony have the rights to?

They basically have the rights to pretty much all of Spider-Man and his friends and foes?

Including Spider-Woman in some capacity because while they can use the costume and the name "Spider-Woman", they can't call her Jessica Drew or mention HYDRA, which factors into her origin story.

Meanwhile, Marvel CAN use the Jessica Drew name, but can't make any implications to her having spider powers.

EDIT:

Some have hypothesized that the Benefactor that was alluded to in Ant-Man & The Wasp could be Norman Osborn, but it really depends on whether Sony wants to play ball with that or not...

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jan 11th 2020 at 12:33:17 PM

I'm not sure Norman could work in the MCU simply because I don't think there's anything he could do that could top Beck.

You could always make Norman the President of the United States. It wouldn't be the first time they've done that idea.

I also think that Marvel will not use much of Spider-Man's world outside of his own movie. Only Spidey and maybe his class and Jonah might be appearing outside the regular Home franchise.

Both Marvel and Disney have quality standards. Let's say Marvel would like to use Norman as the Big Bad in a Dark Reign adaptation, but Sony has already debuted him in the SUMC or they have the right to use him in the future. That means that they should use their version since otherwise it would be too confusing, but also that would mean link it to other products that might be considered subpar to Marvel/Disney standards.

Marvel/Disney are only happy to have Spider-Man interact with the rest of the MCU, but they don't want anything that they don't have the full control over.

(In any case, this at least probably means MCU Anya :p)

Edited by Akirakan on Jan 11th 2020 at 1:10:40 PM

Someone found another Morbius leak, this time a screenshot from the trailer.

On the wall is a mural of Spider-Man slammed with the term "Murderer" after Mysterio's trickery in Far From Home.

Whelp...that's hard to swallow but I guess it confirms when Morbius takes place?

EDIT: And already, Twitter's calling foul because the Spider-Man mural is a screenshot of the Sam Raimi Spider-Suit from the Spider-Man PS4 game. Obviously it's a placeholder image and the actual movie will have MCU Spidey. Maybe.

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jan 12th 2020 at 9:06:28 AM

That pic was made by a parody news account

I actually came to share it because I found it too funny, but welp, you beat me to it

Edited by Akirakan on Jan 12th 2020 at 9:18:36 AM

Terribly sorry, but what indication is there that the pic was faked?

The tweet just says that Morbius and the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies are canon, but given it's a parody news account, it's pretty obviously a joke made at the expense of Sony for using the PS4 Raimi suit to refer to the MCU Spidey.

Unless you're making a joke?

Ah, sorry, I understood that the pic was made by the parody account, but it seems that it's legit.

Still funny that they used the PS 4 version of Raimi's Spider-man.

That's actually what Sony thought the deal was originally going to be.

When Amy Pascal was hyping up the first Venom film, she suggested this would be their dynamic. The MCU Spider-Man films were considered by Sony to be a canon part of the Spider-Man franchise, but the SUMC wouldn't have any direct effect on the MCU. They wanted to carve out their own little pocket of MCU quasi-canon.

Kevin Feige shut that down hard shortly after she said that. He asserted that no, Sony's films aren't quasi anything. The MCU is the MCU, the deal is that Marvel can make Spider-Man films in the MCU, and then Sony can go do whatever with the rest of the rights but those movies are not MCU films and never will.

I've long suspected that Sony trying to take their ball and go home after Far From Home was inspired by bad blood. Pascal basically thought they were being invited to join the MCU and Feige shut her down hard, so she took the first opportunity to go, "Fine, f*ck you too," and leave with the Spider-Man rights.

I still think that, since apparently the new deal is letting the SUMC be what Pascal originally wanted in the first place.

Gee, that wasn't petty of Amy Pascal at all.

But wait, doesn't this just raise further questions? What if Marvel wants to use Norman Osborn? Are they going to have to haggle with Sony on that?

And what if Marvel wants to have Spidey fight Kingpin (a character they'll be able to use again soon) or team up with Deadpool? Will they be able to get around those if they do them in not-Spidey movies?

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jan 13th 2020 at 10:30:21 AM

The answer to that is exactly what it was before: if Marvel wants to use a character that Sony holds the rights to, they'll have to negotiate with Sony.

Marvel does not own the Spider-Man film rights. The new deal didn't change that.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jan 13th 2020 at 8:45:46 AM

Marvel doesn't need any of the Spider-Man characters that isn't Spider-Man himself. At this point they can make MODOK the next Big Bad of the MCU and still make billions. They have no need to use Norman nor any of Spidey's supporting cast.

Heck, so far the only two characters outside of Spidey himself to show in other MCU movies that aren't part of Home are May and Ganke, and they were practically cameos.

Now, I imagine that the Spider-Man movies with Holland could potentially use characters from the MCU, like how Homecoming and FFH had Tony and Nick, as meanwhile they negotiate with Marvel and their respective actors. So I imagine that Deadpool or Daredevil could potentially appear in the next Home movie, but don't expect the Guardiand of the Galaxy to show up in Venom or Captain Marvel in a Araña movie that will totally happen.

Edited by Akirakan on Jan 13th 2020 at 11:37:51 AM

I mean, I think fans would still love a Spider-Man/Deadpool movie and it would make a billion dollars, but I don't know if either Sony or Marvel would agree to split that money.

Not sure if mistyped, or deliberate dig at replacing Ganke with Ned.

The Morbius trailer's here, folks:

What's the verdict?

EDIT: "From the studio that brought you Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home and Venom"? That sounds a smidge dishonest...

And...VULTURE?!

Edited by TargetmasterJoe on Jan 13th 2020 at 12:06:41 PM

Also, we are totally going to get a Sinister Six movie. With Morbius, the Vulture, and probably Venom.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 13th 2020 at 9:15:31 AM

If the T’s are crossed and the I’s dotted, that will be the event of the summer when it happens.

I meant "dishonest" in the sense that Sony had help with Homecoming and Far From Home while Venom was all their thing. (And by "help", I mean "Marvel Studios made the movies, Sony just slapped its name onto them.")

It's really not dishonest.

Honestly, I don't think it looks too bad. I really like how they're going all in on the horror angle. So far, the only real hangup I'm having with this production is...well, that fact that it's main lead is played by Jared Leto. XD Other than it, it's shaping up to be a pretty decent (though hardly groundbreaking) movie from where I'm at.

Oh, there is one more thing I wanted to point out.

Tired: Having JJJ being this movie universe's equivalent of Nick Fury.

Wired: Having Adrian Toomes AKA: Vulture being this movie universe's equivalent of Nick Fury.

Fair enough... -__-

I'm trying to think about this partnership as detachedly (as in not getting clouded by emotions) as possible.

What if Sony Pictures just went belly up? Does the partnership have a clause for what will happen if Sony Pictures goes kaput for any reason, like bankruptcy or what happened with The Weinstein Company?

If we get Michael Keaton as the SUMC equivalent of Nick Fury, I will forgive Sony everything.

But they got to get a good director for Sinister Six.

Edited by alliterator on Jan 13th 2020 at 9:44:44 AM

"So what are we? Some sort of Sinister Six?"

Actually, hang on. Vulture, Mysterio, Scorpion, Venom, Morbius, Shocker... Holy crap, I think they have enough Spidey villains to form the team for the third film (assuming Mysterio's not dead).

From what I can gather, Morbius was never part of the Sinister Six in the comics. The closest was when Mojo pitted Spider-Man against a group of holograms called the Sinister Sixty-Six.