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Just weeks after I speculated that Marvel’s destruction of their known universe and it’s various realities in the upcoming Secret Wars event could lead to a homogenous structure that would fit neatly into the marketing strategy of their parent company, Disney, a new web has been spun.

It has long been rumored and anticipated the at Marvel’s masthead character, Spider-Man would be finally joining the ranks of the uber successful Marvel Cinematic Universe. The hold-up was that Sony owned the exclusive film rights to the character and it would require some heavy negotiation to pull it off. After some industrial hacking, corporate upheaval and a disappointing attempt to reboot the Spider-Man franchise, Sony and Marvel have established a new relationship regarding ol’ Web-Head.

According to the deal, Marvel can now use Spider-Man in future films alongside all of their other famous characters just as he does in the comic books. More interestingly, they are exploring opportunities to integrate characters from the MCU into Sony’s Spider-Man films!

What does this mean?

Marvel has been making cinematic history by building a universe that ties the continuity of all of their films, television and Netflix series all together into a neat, orderly package.

Sony, on the other hand has been tinkering with various realities related to Spider-Man that have introduced different origins, relationships, actors and villains to a mixed reaction among audiences.

Long-time fans of Marvel comics know that over the last seventy-five years, there have been a lot of changes made to most of the characters and various generations of readers have personal attachments to “their” universe. Basically, today’s Spider-Man is not your parent’s Spider-Man.

This is a problem for Marvel because, as diligent they are about building a cohesive MCU that will stand the test of time and establish a specific cannon, they will inevitably alienate some portion of their audience who may miss their beloved version of a character.

Sony’s Spider-Man franchise can become their escape valve for alternate universes that will allow these variants to come alive on film with the friendly, neighborhood, web-slinger as the conduit.

A solid, friendly relationship between Marvel and Sony will give audiences an opportunity to explore all of the potential options of the multitude of characters in the Marvel Universe and all of its various realities while also establishing a solid core universe built around the MCU that will dictate the long term marketing strategy of Marvel/Disney.

It is a win-win situation for everyone. Marvel and Sony both have a full roster to work with and fans can have the best of all worlds that will appropriately be linked by an intricate web that only Spidey could weave.

Now, if only 20th Century Fox would wise up and join the party…

Gerry Giovinco