Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige On Spider-Man: “It Was Never Meant To Last Forever”

Bruce Haring

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Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has issued his first public comments about the Disney/Sony dispute over future Spider-Man film financing.

“I’m feeling about Spider-Man gratitude and joy,” Feige said, speaking at D23’s Entertainment Weekly booth. “We got to make five films within the MCU with Spider-Man: two standalone films and three with the Avengers. It was a dream that I never thought would happen. It was never meant to last forever. We knew there was a finite amount of time that we’d be able to do this, and we told the story we wanted to tell, and I’ll always be thankful for that.”

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Earlier this week, Deadline’s Mike Fleming broke the story about Disney seeking a 50/50 co-fi stake (sources said the original Disney ask was more reasonable) as the price for Marvel and Feige’s continued guiding hand on the films, which resulted in the delivery of Sony’s biggest-grossing film ever.

The dispute that has taken place over the past few months at the top of Disney and Sony has essentially nixed Feige participation and the future involvement of Marvel from the Spider-Man universe, sources said.

This comes at a moment when the last two films Kevin Feige produced broke all-time records — Disney’s Avengers: Endgame became the highest-grossing film of all time, and Spider-Man: Far From Home this week surpassed the James Bond film Skyfall to become the all-time highest-grossing film for Sony Pictures

Sony declined to meet those terms or even counter with anything worth considering. It was an aggressive stance by Disney, which already owns the merchandise on Spider-Man, and a tough nut for Sony to swallow, giving up half of its most valuable franchise. But these talks had been going on for some time. Had Sony agreed to Disney’s ask, Marvel and Feige would not have withdrawn from the Spider-Man films, sources said.

Sony is planning two more Spider-Man installments, though it is an open question whether those will include Jon Watts, director of the first two films guided creatively by Feige.

 

 

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