Sony Has a Spider-Man Problem

[Music] 20 years ago Sam Ramy Spider-Man 2 was not only a major box office hit but it proved this superhero movie thing wasn't a passing fat filmmakers with vision could do something with comic book IP that was more than Camp more than Hokum could treat the characters intelligently and with dignity while also offering a supremely exciting and fun adventure it's basically a perfect Spider-Man movie Pizza time and then for the next two decades Sony has been trying to hold on to the rights to Spider-Man with an iron grip so tight that anything halfway interesting gets squeezed out instead Sony simply hopes for a quick enough cash grab that Marvel doesn't take back Spidey and his Myriad villains on mass it seems wildly improbable in 2024 but Marvel used to be in pretty Dire Straits as a company who was on the verge of bankruptcy by the early 1990s as a result they started to sell off movie rights to various Studios for what seems like pittens today in 1994 Marvel licensed the X-Men and all related characters to 20th Century Fox for am measly $2.6 million adjusting for inflation that's still a little over $5.5 million the resultant film in 2000 cost the studio 75 million but raked in $236 million worldwide a huge huge return on investment in 99 Sony bought the rights to Spider-Man and all his amazing friends and enemies for $7 million Spidey was a much more bankable name to the film industry than the X-Men hence the higher price tag but my God was it worth it for them and for us with Sam Ry at the helm and a budget of $139 million the first Spider-Man in 2002 was a phenomenal hit $825 million worldwide over a billion today's money that means billion not just a money maker but a critical darling too owing to the seriousness with which Remy treated the characters while still retaining the more Fantastical comic Booky elements yes it's not the most polished of comic book movies by today's standards but Toby Maguire was a winning Peter Parker and his journey to learn that great power and responsibility are a packaged deal still Rings true one could argue Stan Lee and Steve ditco made the perfect superhero origin which the movie defitely portrays not to mention William defo is Norman Osborne a villain so perfectly cast it's a wonder he even needed a mask the first Spider-Man came out the year I graduated high school and it absolutely blew me away finally Spider-Man the way I always envisioned him on the big screen I never really lik the suit if I'm honest but hey Beggars and choosers may God be with you after the success of Spider-Man the floodgates opened wide the next several years saw Marvel movies Galore Daredevil X2 and Hulk in 2003 The Punisher and Blade Trinity in 2004 oh yeah blade so the first blade came out in 1998 predating X-Men and Spider-Man 1 Blade 2 even came out the same year as Spider-Man one the first two movies are good and made money but they weren't the juggernauts of the other two franchises probably because mainstream audiences don't know who the blade is you obviously do not know who you are fing with Blade Trinity sucked and though it made a decent amount of money the shine had worn off of that particular franchise in 2004 Sony followed up their success with Spider-Man 2 and I truly cannot overstate what a high water mark this movie is directly adapting the famous story Spider-Man no more bridging issues 50 through 52 of The Amazing Spider-Man from 1967 one of the most important stories of the Stanley and John Rita senior pairing it depicts Peter Parker giving up the mantle of Spider-Man fed up with the lack of respect he gets from the city despite all the good he does and the pummeling he takes the movie also brought in elements of Dr octopus's first appearance as well as the 1966 story if this be my destiny Ry and screenwriter Alvin Sargent sifted through several drafts by several other writers to eventually hone in on a story that is at heart about Peter choosing once again to forego his superhero life in favor of a normal one only to realize he needs to be greatly responsible once he gets his great Powers again Spider-Man 2 has a better story better and more nuanced villain in Alfred Molina's Doc O another terrific turn from Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and even allowed Ry to cut loose with his evil deadness a few times specifically in the masterful scene when doc O's robotic arms gain sentience somehow unbelievably I checked the numbers Spider-Man 2 made less money than its predecessor with just $795 million I'm saying that like that's not still an incredible amount of money Spider-Man 2 from from my memory simply blew the first movie which I still liked out of the water even moments that should give me cringe chills specifically I'm talking about the moment on the L train when the people of New York City defend Spider-Man and keep his identity a secret worked and even brought a tear to my eye you want to get to him you got to go through me and I grew up in Denver we never talked to anyone well then 3 years later we got Spider-Man 3 to say this production was Frau might be an understatement Remy wanted to conclude Harry Osborne's Arc from the first two movies and he wanted a to Showcase that all of Peter's heroism isn't uniformally good so for that he chose Sandman a character whom Spider-Man directly created all of that was both well and good but Ry also wanted another big villain to go along with Sandman Ry pitched the vulture as the secondary villain but Sony wanted a sure thing they wanted a big popular villain who could hit with the Yos they wanted Venom a character only created in the '90s but who had already Rose to prominence you know him the big goo guy thank you Sony of course got their wish and the result in Spider-Man 3 was if you ask me a mess why was it a mess it still had Remy directing all the main cast returning loads of action and increasingly good CGI it's a mess because its clear Venom is at odds with what Remy wanted to do the black suit Arc which predated Venom in the comics needed to be adapted which gave us the now Infamous emo Peter stuff I'm going to put some dirt in your eye and there just wasn't enough time to flesh that out properly while still trying to do the Sandman Peter's fault stuff or the Harry Osborne Green Goblin 2 stuff and by time we actually see proper Venom toward the end of the movie he's not the massive threat nor the lethal protector that fans wanted I know people like it more now and I'm not saying they're wrong but I'm saying at the time it felt like Batman and Robin syndrome what killed the dinosaurs the Ice Age despite the movie still making loads of money close to $900 million Sony would let the franchise lie fallow for a few years and ultimately reboot it rather than continue with Sam Ry let me tell you a quick story about film rights of other Marvel Comics properties in the mid 80s New World pictures the company started by the late great Roger Corman bought Marvel Entertainment Group which included Marvel Comics and Marvel Productions outright only a few years later in 1989 New World sold Marvel Entertainment Group to A Holdings company but they retained Marvel Productions and folded it into their TV and film wi they're the ones basically who made all the cartoons that we loved in the '90s the '90s were as previously stated a Time of upheaval at Marvel with them acquiring part of toy Biz and later Malibu and Panini before the comic book Bubble Burst and they had to file for bankruptcy in 1995 this is when Marvel started selling off rights and whatnot however years earlier in the mid 80s a German producer met with Stan Lee about obtaining the rights to make a Fantastic Four movie Constantine films ended up buying these rights for a measly $250,000 but hadn't done anything with them rights to things collapse and so they needed to make something quickly in order to hold on to the first family of Science in early '92 Constantine partnered with the aforementioned Roger Corman and his New Horizon's pictures to produce the film for $1 million okay what's the budget and he said $30 million and I said how much money do you have $1 million they cast the movie and began production in late 1992 in and around Venice California the shoot lasted only between 3 and 3 and 1/2 weeks now this is a cheap movie but it was still a movie with actors who thought they would eventually see it on the big screen initially the film was supposed to come out Labor Day 1993 then was pushed to January 1994 but even so the cast went to Comic-Con to promote it but they were all of them deceived the movie as is now common knowledge was never going to come out it's what is called an ash can copy a movie made entirely to retain the rights to a property when fox went to Marvel to buy the rights to Xmen they also discussed Fantastic 4 but because Constantine made that spous Fantastic 4 movie Marvel had to buy the rights from them to then sell it to Fox and you can bet Ben Grim's craggy Granite keester it cost more than $250,000 plus $1 million what kind of a thing have I turned into Constantine got a big fat Payday for essentially tossing money at a bootleg people pass around for a laugh only 10 years after the first Spider-Man movie and 5 years after the third movie Sony rebooted the franchise they got hot young actors Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone to play Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy and a Supporting Cast full of notable character actors The Amazing Spider-Man had a lot going for it but what it doesn't have is much to say Garfield's Peter is a smarmy pretty boy rather than an overworked nerd and when he's Spider-Man he gives us some of the patented Spidey snark the rest of the time he comes across more like tortured teen genius than friendly neighborhood anybody but even changing the love interest to Gwen Stacy who had a very silly Arc in Spider-Man 3 I didn't even talk about The Amazing Spider-Man or tasm as I will now call it just doesn't have its own identity we still have to see Peter gain powers and try to master them the villain is another scientist with ties to Peter we still have to watch Uncle Ben die and then we even have to watch Captain Stacy die a major event from the comics that comes oh only roughly about 100 issues into Spider-Man's tenure this goddamn movie loves killing parents because the overarching mystery of the film is who actually killed Peter's scientist parents it's just so joyless and perfunctory it's not badly made but right down to the New Yorkers sticking up for Spider-Man it doesn't do anything better or even all that different than the Ry movies and I know people like Garfield but he's just soing sad all the time this isn't Spiderman Chester by the sea but despite my general distaste for tasm it made a decent amount of money still less than any of the Ry movies even though it cost way more but the move paid off Sony had proven at a time when the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Avengers were the biggest things in the world they could also make a movie based on a character they own the rights to still as much as tasm was a snooze tasm 2 in 2014 was well it's not boring the tone is much lighter for a lot of the runtime anyway and it has more color and finally we got a Spider-Man costume on screen I liked so that is actually something but who doggies is this movie a mess it's not an unenjoyable mess but it is a mess they decided to do the death of Gwen Stacy at the hands of Green Goblin only two movies into the new continuity but flipped it so it's Harry Osborne who just shows up in this movie To Go full gobby by end rather than Norman the film also bestowed upon us Jamie Fox as Electro or I should say a version of Electro who hardly resembles any version of Electro but it does resemble an offensive nerd stereotype and for no real reason Paul Giamatti is Rhino for 2 [Music] minutes actually let me correct that for what at first seemed like no real reason because by the end of the movie it becomes clear a mysterious figure seems to be putting together a team of incredible individuals no it's not Nick Fury and it's not the Avengers you see sonyy has the rights to Spider-Man and all his many related characters but as happens with Batman and other similar solo Heroes most of the many related characters at least the ones with name and gimmick recognition are the villains Sony wanted to make their own version of The Avengers but with Spider-Man villains rather than Heroes The Sinister Six and this was the Crux of what's been going on ever since when it comes to British film and TV rights even if a writer is commissioned to write a piece of work for hire any character or idea they create fully on their own is theirs rather than owned by the program or the network pretty great deal if you can get it and so in 1963 when the BBC was trying to launch their new series Doctor Who and yes I am going to talk about it again they commissioned a writer named Terry Nation to write a Sci-Fi serial as only the second serial of the show no one expected it was going to be as popular as it was and so when he penned the seven episodes that introduced the Del who could have guessed they'd create a Mania a doc Mania now one could argue and I will that BBC designer Raymond cusk who created the iconic design of the Dolls is more integral to the lasting success of the aliens the I stock the weird suction cup arm the tank-like movement apparatus they're as indelible and singular as any sci-fi Creations in the television age but that's not how it works and it's Nation who gets to be called the creator of the dolls and who retained the rights to them so naturally what's a guy to do when he's making money off merchandise and benefiting from the UK Public's love of the Dolls he tried to spin them off there doll Centric comic strips and feature films based on his at the time two produced doll scripts featuring Peter Cushing as a as just a guy named Doctor Who that travels through time and space Nation even attempted a few times to create a d Centric television series both in the UK and in the US hoping that dollx alone could carry a series and break the American Market before even Doctor Who aired there and here's what happened he couldn't people who love the dolls almost categorically love them as the antagonist of Doctor Who they like the dolls as a function of fighting against the doctor they are no question an integral and important part of Doctor Who but without the doctor people lose interest in the dolls pretty quickly why cuz they're evil people want to root for heroes or at least anti-heroes not space fascists also they just kind of say the one thing over and over and over again exterminate exterminate exter and so try as he might and he still made a mint off of them Terry Nation could never quite get the dolls which he owned the rights to to work outside the series he did not with Marvel Studios now fully ensconced at Disney and their total box office grow greater than the GDP of most Nations the MCU seemed Unstoppable going from strength to strength and with every hit fans got more and more annoyed that some other of their favorite Marvel characters couldn't show up due to licensing the biggest villain of all now I'm not going to get into various email hacks and dumb things Studio heads say when they think no one is looking looking but in 2014 it came out that Marvel's Kevin feige had approached Sony's Amy Pascal about using Spider-Man in an MCU movie while it seemed like these discussions broke down by 2015 a deal was in place to include Peter Parker in an upcoming film that movie of course ended up being 2016's Captain America Civil War which brought together a million in one Marvel characters and introduced not only Tom Holland as Spider-Man but Chadwick Boseman as black panther big important movie for the franchise that Spider-Man appearance was incredibly well-received and Sony and Marvel eventually made yet another deal for movies including solo Spider-Man movies within the MCU as well as appearances in big teamup movies between 2016 and 2019 Tom Holland Spider-Man appeared in Civil War Spider-Man homecoming Avengers Infinity War Avengers endgame and Spider-Man far from home five movies in three years both the actor and the portrayal proved incredibly popular with fans and audiences and money oh yes it made loads of it Sony makes money on these movies naturally since they are licensing the character back to Marvel for use in the movies but while Sony can and does make Spider-Man animated films featuring Peter Parker and Spider-Man they could not produce their own solo movies with Tom Hall and Spider-Man until that agreement is done there was even a brief period in which it looked like Marvel and Sony weren't going to reach another agreement for a third Spider-Man movie and Holland might be out of the MCU as a result that didn't end up happening and of course Spider-Man no way home hit our screens in 21 you might remember that multiverses were big at the time and that movie capitalized on the shared love of these characters with Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield appearing in the MCU as other universe's Spider-Mans the villains of the film were entirely the roster of baddies from the earlier Sony films William defo got to play Green Goblin using only his own terrifying face which was great and Doc Ox Sandman a normal Electro and the lizard all showed up as well hell JK Simmons even came back as some version of J Jonah Jameson what this meant for fans was huge amounts of fun what it meant for Marvel Studios is co-opting the Nostalgia of the previous filmic Spider-Man incarnations into the MCU alongside their own but what this meant for Sony is that even their own Spider-Man characters were now part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe even if they had wanted to do Spider-Man 4 or The Amazing Spider-Man 3 Marvel Studios kind of did it first so what do you do if you're Sony and before we get too much further into this I am not over here caping for Sony nor pitying a company making billions of dollars far from it but I can see how up creek they are when it comes to Spider-Man they can make villain movies and villain movies that for now can't or at least don't have Spider-Man in them but the best villains are reactions to the hero and Spider-Man has among the best Rogues galleries in all of comics in 2018 lucky for them Sony made [Music] venom venom is a weird movie it shouldn't work even a little tiny bit at all and it's definitely supremely early 2000s in tone and storytelling but Tom Hardy's Twitchy Performance Plus fans finally getting a cinematic version of Venom that looked like the Venom from the comics was enough the public showed up for this thing Venom cost half of what either tasm movie cost but made way more it nearly made what Spider-Man homecoming made is this evidence people will go see Spider-Man villain movies no it was evidence people would go see a Venom movie v n o m venom for the next movie they added Carnage another Spider-Man villain that people like for some reason and yes Venom Let There Be Carnage came out in 2021 still amid the pandemic but it made considerably less than the first movie while Spider-Man no way home was out there making almost 2 billion just a couple months later not sorry God I'm so sorry and it only gets worse from here did you think it' get better it doesn't 2022 saw the release of morbius a movie so aggressively self-serious it actually adds to the stupidity while Venom got on by janky charm morbius tried to convince us no Jank existed no Jank here morbius you know the living vampire first appeared in a Spider-Man comic and ero is technically a Spider-Man character but he doesn't need Spider-Man if any character has a chance to do a blade and be his own guy it's morbius but only if you don't make a movie that sucks hosewater not even a Memel its morban time push could make people want to see the movie and it only made 167 million Which is less than the production budget of Spider-Man no way home the future of the Sony Spider-Man universe didn't look much brighter a craven the hunter movie was in production but kept getting pushed first expected in January 2023 it then moved to October 2023 and then all the way to August 2024 and now at least for now November 2024 the previously announced silver and black which would have featured silver Sable and black cat got permanently sheld because why make a movie about two female superhero characters people actually know and like when you can make I can see you okay so now I have to talk about Madam Webb we all know how incoherent and stupid the movie is we know how it was clearly cut to ribbons and hashed together with ADR and Gauze and we also know how nobody told Sony that Dakota Johnson is actually an agent of chaos using weaponized limes to take Hollywood down from the inside actually no that's not the truth Ellen you were invited but even knowing all that it's astounding how little money Madame Webb made it cost around 100 million and it made 100 million that budget of course doesn't account for marketing so both Madame Webb and morbius have lost so much money it isn't merely that these movies are bad it's that they seem to be made using a book called how to make superhero movies written after Supergirl came out remember that one the worst movie ever you've had your fun Selena the game is finished hardly they seem only to ex to check a box and they can't even be called a blatant cash grab at this point because they're losing so much money at this point I think Sony has had enough and is actively trolling us did you all see the trailer for Venom the Last Dance it's ostensibly the last of the Venom movies but it hasn't escaped us that they've cast ree Evans as someone despite him being Dr Kurt Connor's in The Amazing Spider-Man chew would tell edor as some kind of military guy despite him being Baron MTO in the doctor strange movies and Christo Fernandez as the bartender who witnessed Eddie Brock disappear and finds a dollop of venom goo despite that taking place in a different Universe Sony needs to make Spider-Man related movies to retain the rights but they cannot make a movie with Spider-Man directly in it because they don't want to be in direct competition with essentially themselves so they have these villains and have tried time and again to make a shared Cinematic Universe with them all even though it makes no sense for any of them to know each other originally it seemed like morbius was going to take place in the Maguire universe but that got changed and vulture from homecoming ended up in the morbius universe and Madame web was maybe going to take place in the Andrew Garfield universe but that got scrapped and Venom has never definitively taken place in any universe but now can apparently hop between the MCU whenever he wants to it's somehow an even less coherent and unified continuity than the waning days of the DC euu which changed creative directions like eight times Sony Spider-Man universe has never even had one creative Direction Beyond keeping the rights and using villains to do so Spider-Man is Sony's Cash Cow but he's also it's Albatross they have a Cinematic Universe without a focal point a franchise without a flagship character and a roster of villains who have to become anti-heroes to even stand a chance it's a waiting for gdau situation but with morbius and I don't know scorpion loitering on the side of the road waiting for Spider-Man to show up I keep thinking about the Joker movie I personally have no interest in the Joker without Batman but at the very least you can say they did something different with the idea that didn't require Batman to be around if Sony wanted to make make interesting movies with their roster of Spider-Man villains they should take a conceptual swing like that give them a Twist that sets them apart make it so they're compelling even without the incredibly popular good guy but even as great as Spider-Man villains are none of them except venom has the cultural cache of Someone Like The Joker it's like Sony keeps trying to hint that maybe sometime soon Spider-Man will show up in one of these movies if we just go see them in the meantime it's a very tough trick to pull off especially when we've had good Spider-Man movies very recently the audience seems to be speaking with they're not wallets so what's the answer people want Spider-Man you Sony have the rights to Spider-Man but if you put Spider-Man in a movie right now you run the risk of confusing the market you also own Spider-Man's massive roster of villains but who will they fight against if not Spider-Man and you're running out of villains who can possibly fit the anti-hero mold are you going to do a tombstone or hydroman Solo movie at what point is the amount of money lost on these bombs greater than the amount you stand to gain from potential Spider-Man MCU movies or is the hope of recapturing the success you saw 20 years ago always going to send your spider senses tingling thanks for watching let us know what you think in the comments would you watch an Alistar SMI Solo movie remember him damn did I just give Sony an idea [ __ ] well until then keep a glue to nerdist.com money [Music]

Channel: Nerdist

Views: 42,783

Keywords: Nerdist, Sony, Spider-Man, Venom, Amazing Spider-Man, MCU, Morbius, Madame Web, Marvel, Film, Movies, Sam Raimi, History, Breakdown, Deep Dive, Explained, Analysis, Video Essay

Id: -hj7olmejJs

Length: 23min 55sec (1435 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 26 2024