Sony plans to milk Spiderman 'universe'

In an attempt to emulate what Disney and 20th Century Fox are doing with their Marvel characters, Sony Studio announced it will develop Spiderman spin-off films and tv shows that will be interrelated with the goal to have all those characters come together in a series of films ala Avengers. My two cents on this is that this is going too far. What characters from the Spiderman comicbooks can have their own solo films? here are some of the most popular: Venom, Carnage, Spiderwoman, Black Cat. The others are way too unknown even to average comicbook readers. But the problem with Venom & Carnage are that they share the same origin from the alien symbiote already seen not very impressively in Spiderman3. Spiderwoman sounds like a flop in the making. The problem with Black Cat is that this character is too similar to DC's Catwoman and audiences still remember how awful the Halle Berry film was plus she was seen recently in The Dark Knight Rises and for the most part was a forgettable character. I guess will be seeing tv series about JJ Jameson's newspaper, Flash Thompson's antics and Mary Jane's cousins high school adventures?ff:

 

Marvel shot themselves in the foot when they sold Spiderman's rights. WTF were they thinking? He's the most recognizable Marvel character.

 

Probably had to sell him off to continue existing at one point. There was a time when this shit didn't sell, nobody wanted to see these characters on-screen as the technology didn't exist to pull it off convincingly, and Marvel was nearly bankrupt for a time, I believe.

 

With all the money they've made from the Avengers they should buy it back. An Avenger film with Spiderman on it would be awesome.

 

Sony will never give up the Spiderman rights unless it has a few flops. The numbers of the last one weren't as impressive as the previous ones, but still profitable enough to continue the franchise. If the next one bombs miserably all might change.

Of all the Marvel characters, Spiderman was the only one who was in a legal tangle as both Marvel and Stan Lee had the sold the rights to different companies which started suing each other and Marvel and Lee. This mess started in the late 70's with the Spiderman tv series (awful even by the 70's standards). At that time Marvel was facing bankruptcy and were selling their characters relatively cheap to Hollywood studios with the hope that a movie or tv series will boost their comicbook sales. This legal tangle was the main reason the Spiderman movie by James Cameron never got past preproduction. By the time the smoke cleared, years have passed and Sony was the sole winner and Marvel could only get 'author credit' in the opening titles, but not a dime.

 

I thought that sale happened recently. Sucks.

 

I still can't believe they sold character rights. I don't care how broke I am I would have never done that, at least not for the peso's they did it for. If I'm selling some awesome franchise I created I'm doing it like George Lucas and selling it for billions. How much it must suck watching others make millions off of your creation and the best you can get is a few 3 seconds of spotlight in each film. Moron.

 

Well, it wasn't as easy as it sounds. At that time Stan Lee had left Marvel due to disagreements with the new owners. Without Lee ad other key artists & writers Marvel comics sales went down. They were bankrupt and thought that was the end of Marvel Company so they sold certain characters only to find out that Stan Lee had done the same thing since his new company also went underwater. Lee thought that by being the creator o these characters he owned them. So Marvel, Lee and all the companies the characters were sold to started suing each other. It took like 11 years or so until all this legal mess got resolved. The difference with Lucasfilm is that Star Wars remains a very profitable franchise while Marvel nearly disappeared during its bad days.

 

I think Marvel was so broke they were owned briefly by a toy company.

 

Terrible Idea...Oversaturating the FanBase Will Only HURT the Franchise Down the Line...

 

agREED

There will be so many superhero films that that audiences will become tired of them fast. All those Spiderman spin-offs sound like misfires to me. Sony needs to realize they own Spiderman, not The Avengers nor The Defenders.