Spider-Man has always been the subject of some seriously complicated rights issues dating back over four decades, which is why it took so long for Sam Raimi to bring one of the world’s most popular fictional characters into live-action for the first time as the property bounced around various Hollywood studios. Since then, we’ve got a further six Spidey movies in less than 20 years, but those rights once again caused a headache in the summer of 2019.
As far as we know, Marvel Studios will handle solo Spider-Man blockbusters with Tom Holland in the lead role, while he’s expected to drop by the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters from time to time, too. So far, that sounds pretty simple, but things get murky when you dig deeper into the television side of things.
In fact, we’ve heard from our sources – the same ones that told us War Machine was getting his own Disney Plus series long before Armor Wars was announced – that Holland wants to swing by the Marvel’s small screen universe, but he’ll need permission from Sony to do so. After all, we know that the company currently controls all live-action and animated Spider-Man movies, or TV shows that run longer than 44 minutes, which is weirdly specific.
So, it would seem that Marvel will have to strike another deal with their counterparts in order for Tom Holland to cameo in one of the countless Disney Plus titles in various stages of development. And after threatening to pull him out of the MCU entirely, Sony might not be willing to offer Kevin Feige and his team even more creative leeway when it comes to their most lucrative asset, even though the fans would love to see it happen.