Kevin Feige: Spider-Man 'Belongs' in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ (Sony Pictures)
By Graeme McMillan, The Hollywood Reporter
Next year, Spider-Man will come face to face with Iron Man, Captain America and the Avengers when Tom Holland’s take on the web-slinging hero debuts the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of the character in Captain America: Civil War. According to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, it’s a move that brings the character home.
“I think Spider-Man can serve great purpose in our universe and that’s where he belongs,” Feige said during a Q&A to promote the home release of Avengers: Age of Ultron. “What was unique about him in the comics was not that he was the only superhero in the world; it’s that he was a totally different kind of superhero when compared against all the other ones in the Marvel universe at the time.”
Saying that the agreement with Sony “means a lot, because I think we can do great things with Spider-Man,” Feige told reporters that gaining the chance to add the wall-crawler to the Marvel Cinematic Universe “has been a dream of ours for a long time. We always had contingency plans, which we always do anyway. Are we going to be able to make another deal with this actor? If so, we’re going to do this; if not, we’re going to do this. If we get the rights to a certain character, that’s great; we’re going to do this. If not, we’re going to do this. We always sort of operate under those various alternate timelines available and ready to shift if something happens.”
Despite the possibilities that Spider-Man’s new home in the Marvel Universe offers, however, Feige said that “the most important thing as a standalone is relaunching Spider-Man in his own standalone movie with his own storylines that fits into this universe.” The first Spider-Man movie of the new era, directed by Jon Wattsfrom a screenplay by John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein, will be released in 2017.
Getting that standalone movie right “is job number one for us,” Feige said. “The connectivity is great, but it doesn’t drive the train.”
Related: Sony’s New ‘Spider-Man’ Won’t Be Origin Story, Says Screenwriter
