Spider-Man will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe for Captain America 3 and then get his own movie. Sinister Six is still on, too.
NewsUPDATED 12:30 pm: We've slightly amended this story to reflect a few details that have trickled out since the news broke.
We never thought we'd see it happen, but here we are. Spider-Man will join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not only that, but there's finally an official release date for a new Spider-Man movie: July 28th, 2017. But before then, we'll meet the new Spider-Man in an unnamed Marvel Cinematic Universe outing, which is almost certainly going to be Captain America: Civil War. Marvel have also reshuffled a number of release dates to make room for Spidey.
Our complete Marvel movie release calendar can be found here.
The language of the statement released by Marvel is reasonably clear. For one thing, Amy Pascal's recent stepping down from her position at Sony clearly hasn't left her in a bad position, as she's going to co-produce the new Spider-Man franchise with Kevin Feige. "Together they will collaborate on a new creative direction for the web slinger," is how the official statement puts it. This can't be a bad thing, either.
"I am thrilled to team with my friends at Sony Pictures along with Amy Pascal to produce the next Spider-Man movie," said Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. "Amy has been deeply involved in the realization on film of one of the world’s most beloved characters. Marvel's involvement will hopefully deliver the creative continuity and authenticity that fans demand from the MCU. I am equally excited for the opportunity to have Spider-Man appear in the MCU, something which both we at Marvel, and fans alike, have been looking forward to for years."
And then there's this: "Sony Pictures will continue to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control of the Spider-Man films." Something tells me that while this is true, they're quite happy to let Kevin Feige, who just turned a far less marketable property like Guardians of the Galaxy into one of the most beloved comic book flicks of the last twenty years, have his say.
The statement also confirms that they're working on ways to share Marvel Cinematic Universe characters in Spider-Man solo films. This shouldn't be too hard with Kevin Feige as co-producer. While there are still details to work out, and we expect this is far from the end of this story, there's still the matter of who will be the new Peter Parker (unless it's Miles Morales) for example.
This is all very good news...unless you're a fan of the recent Amazing Spider-Man franchise, because those films now appear to have been relegated to the reboot Phantom Zone. The Wall Street Journal reports that Sony's The Sinister Six movie is still going ahead, but will no longer appear in that November of 2016 release slot. Hopefully Drew Goddard is still steering that one. At one point, Sinister Six had been floated as a bit of a soft reboot of the franchise, but now it will have to work around Marvel's plan first.
