Rumor: Sony "Considering Selling The Spider-Man IP" To The Walt Disney Company
A new rumor alleges that Sony is considering selling Spider-Man to The Walt Disney Company.
This rumor comes from scooper MyTimeToShineHello on X. He writes, “I hear Sony is seriously considering selling the Spider-Man IP back to Marvel.”
The rumor comes as Sony’s latest Marvel film, Kraven the Hunter bombed at the box office only bringing in $11 million in its opening weekend and just $15 million internationally for a global gross of $26 million.
To compare, Madame Web did $15 million in its opening weekend, but it also released on Wednesday February 14th where it brought in $6 million and then another $2.1 million on Thursday for an overall total of $23.5 million. It had a $25.7 million international debut and a global gross of around $50 million.
There have also been multiple conflicting reports about the state of Sony’s Marvel Universe. First, Umberto Gonzalez at TheWrap reported that the universe was ending with Kraven.
An alleged top talent agent informed him, “They’ve developed what they want to develop for now. It’s really about the next Spider-Man film.”
Gonzalez also reported that a Sony insider informed him that “the studio is now focusing its efforts on Holland’s highly anticipated fourth Spider-Man film, the next installment in the acclaimed Spider-Verse animated film series with Beyond the Spider-Verse and a Spider-Noir television series featuring Nicolas Cage — projects that lean into, rather than away from, the web-slinger’s central appeal.”
However, a few days later Adam B. Vary at Variety claimed the universe was not dead. In fact, he bizarrely claimed that Sony never had a Sony Marvel Universe or a Sony Spider-Man Universe. He wrote, “For one thing, technically speaking, there never really was a Sony Marvel Universe, or a Sony Spider-Man Universe, or any other official designation akin to the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the newly relaunched DC Universe.”
This is simply not true. Sony seemingly informed Deadline’s Anita Busch back in 2017 that it was calling its universe Sony’s Marvel Universe.
Busch wrote at the time, “They also note that Venom is from Sony’s Marvel Universe and is not a spinoff but the first movie after Spider-Man from its Marvel Universe of characters.”
Then Variety’s Brent Lang and Justin Kroll reported in 2018 that Sony was referring to its universe as Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters. The duo wrote, “We’re focused on being faithful to the comics,” said Sanford Panitch, president of Columbia Pictures, and the executive who has been overseeing what is being dubbed internally, Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters, or SUMC.”
In 2020, the official Spider-Man Movie account on X posted, “Join Spider-Man and all his friends while you swing through all the films from the Spider-Man Universe of Characters!”
IGN then reported in April 2020 that a Sony spokesman informed that the company’s official name for its universe was Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters.
In August 2021, ScreenRant reported that Sony informed them that the company was calling its universe Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
So clearly there was a universe, it just had a number of different names.
Nevertheless, Vary notes that Sony is working with Marvel Studios on a fourth Spider-Man film that is expected to begin filming in 2025. It’s also working on the third animated Spider-Verse film as well as the Spider-Noir series starring Nicholas Cage on Amazon Prime Video.
He also noted that Sony is still exploring other Spider-Man related character, “Moving forward, [Sony insiders] say, the studio will need to be more discerning about which — if any — of the studio’s stable of Spider-Man characters should be elevated into their own movie franchise.”
What do you make of this rumor?