It’s safe to say that neither Disney nor Sony were expecting to be in this position. In the wake of the two companies’ financial dispute and break up, fans have been quick to note that a lot of messes have been left to clean up when it comes to Peter Parker’s story. Watching him be built as the prodigy and successor of Tony Stark for the last several years, a lot of Marvel fans are struggling to see how Spider-Man‘s tale will be told outside of the MCU – well, at least told well.
Given the intricacies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it isn’t surprising to hear that a plan had already been hatched for Spidey’s next adventure. And while moviegoers constantly gnaw at any insider hints of a comic book film, this retired Spider-Man project will become an especially hot commodity.
If you jump back a month before the chaos, an interview with Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige indicated a bright future for Peter Parker.
“It’ll be fun to see Spidey back in his element, out of the shadow of Tony, out of the shadow of the other Avengers, as his own man now, as his own hero,” Feige said when asked how the franchise will move forward following Far From Home’s shocking mid-credits scene. “And yet now facing his own challenges that aren’t coming from Avengers fighting, like [Captain America: Civil War], or aliens coming, like [Avengers: Infinity War] or [Avengers: Endgame]. It’s all Peter focused and Peter based.”
As those of you who saw Spider-Man: Far From Home know, Peter’s identity was outed by his fallen foe Mysterio. This mid-credits scene marked the first time that fact reached the surface on film, and Feige said that with it, they were striving to do something that’d never been done before.
“The how and the when and the specifics can change and evolve, but setting yourself up for something that has never been done before… at the end of Iron Man, it was a hero publicly outing himself so that in the next movies and all subsequent movies, we couldn’t fall back on the secret identity trope which had been part of Iron Man’s story for decades in the comics,” Feige said. “And now people know Peter’s identity. People now think he’s a villain, Mysterio plays one last trick on him and succeeds… [so that] means everything’s different. Where it goes, we’ll see. But it’s exciting that it once again sets us up for a Peter Parker story that has never been done before on film.”
Unfortunately – and this is a very big, unfortunately – these plans will have to be put on hold. Though Spider-Man will still have to deal with the fallout of Mysterio’s actions, it won’t be in the same way Feige had intended. That is, unless Marvel and Sony can come to an agreement.
But that possibility hasn’t been sounding so good.