Sony has plans to build a whole Spider-Man universe beyond MCU

“Sony has the ultimate authority”

Last year, Marvel fans were ecstatic to learn that Spider-Man would be joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe! After years of Sony slowly ruining Spider-Man on the big screen, Sony finally released the web-swinger back into Marvel's hands. However, it has been fairly vague on how much input Sony has on these new films and who has the overall say on what happens with the character. We now have a much clearer answer.

The Hollywood Reporter sat down with Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Tom Rothman and asked him about the future of the wall-crawler and if they would like to continue working with Marvel. "Yes to both those questions. It’s been fantastic, our relationship with Marvel." said Rothman. When asked who is truly in control with Spider-Man, Rothman gave us a somewhat vague answer but you can read in-between the lines. "Sony has the ultimate authority. But we have deferred the creative lead to Marvel, because they know what they’re doing."

In other words, Sony just sits back and lets Marvel do most of the work and Sony will just sign off on it.

Sony had plans to make a massive Spider-Man universe starting with a Sinister Six film before Marvel came in. The movies would have then expanded into a standalone Venom spin-off and numerous sequels to The Amazing Spider-Man film. It sounds like Sony hasn't officially cancelled the plans of expanding the Spider-Man universe however as there is an animated film that's unrelated to Tom Holland's Spider-Man in the works.

"And we have dated Christmas 2018 for what I believe is truly going to be a breakthrough animated sensation. [Phil] Lord and [Chris] Miller, who did the Lego movies, are doing an animated Spider-Man. And it has a very breakthrough look to it, and a fantastic story, and it's independent from our Marvel Spider-Man.” said Rothman.

It sounds like Sony is going to be pretty busy with Spider-Man for the next few years with his standalone live action film Spider-Man: Homecoming debuting next summer and his animated film. There are also rumors that the Venom spin-off is still very much alive at Sony, but I wouldn't expect that movie to see the light of day.

In addition to films, Spider-Man is also coming back to the video game world with a PlayStation 4 exclusive game developed by Insomniac Games.