(This article contains spoilers for most, if not all Spider-Man movies, and Avengers’ movies.)
Spider-man has seen some changes throughout the years in its cinematic universe, going through actors and different production studios.
Courtesy: ing
What most millennials will remember and stand by is Toby Maguire’s Spider-man trilogy, as it was what many of them grew up on and was their first exposure to the web-slinging, spandex-wearing teenager. This movie trilogy was owned by Sony pictures at the time when the Marvel Cinematic Universe also belonged to them. It was a huge success to Sony as it earned over $100 million in box office the first weekend it was released and was also the third highest-grossing film of 2002, the year it was released.
Courtesy: Entertainment for Us
This Spider-man showed the dorkier photographer side of Peter Parker and showed his struggled with adapting to his new powers, fighting villains and learning how to talk to girls, mainly Mary Jane, his love interest in the series. The trilogy pulled out some of Spider-man’s most iconic and well-known villains, Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus, Venom, and Sandman all to face and challenge our hero. Thus beginning the legacy of Spider-man’s cinematic debut.
Courtesy: IMDb
With Sony, viewers were allowed to see darker moments and deeper backstories of Peter Parker and his friends and foes. This is most evident in Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-man. Through this new series of the teenage hero, audiences see a darker side to Spider-man and the more gruesome plots of the original comics, written by Stan Lee. Peter’s love interest through the movies, Gwen Stacy shockingly has an on-screen death, after one of Spider-man’s battles where he didn’t save her in time. Audiences mourned the character and got to see their beloved hero mourn as well. This is a dimension that has rarely been seen of the teen. Most audiences see the death of Parker’s uncle Ben, a major plot point in the creation of Peter’s character, but so solemnly is a love-interests death seen on screen.
Courtesy: BWallpapers
In 2008, Disney purchased the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) from Sony and the game changed for fans and superheroes alike. With this change, viewers received Iron Man 3, The Avengers saga, The Captain America trilogy, The Thor trilogy, and many standalone movies that are all vital to a beloved time-line. Including Peter Parker himself, his first debut being in Captain America: Civil War.
Courtesy: imgur
Spider-man: Homecoming, was released in 2017 by Marvel Studios, in partnership with Sony, and viewers fell in love with Tom Holland’s version of Peter Parker. Holland allowed viewers to get a glimpse into the youth and innocence of Parker and the true high school experience that he encountered. Unlike the other two series, this movie used Parker’s high school career as a major plot setting, rather than a background buzz. In this movie, our hero has to face the after-effects of The Avengers and the weapons and technology that was left behind and fallen into the wrong hands. This is how our hero’s movie connects with the rest of the MCU timeline.
Courtesy: ComicBook
Earlier this year fans were given the second part of this new Peter Parker: Spider-man: Far from Home. This movie follows Avenger’s: Endgame, where fan’s beloved Iron Man, Tony Stark, had died, leaving Peter, again, without a father figure. This allows the young hero to trust the first father figure that arose, Mysterio. This leads to betrayal, as Mysterio was working against Peter and the deceased Stark until Mysterio does the worst thing possible to the young hero: reveals his identity and turns all of New York against him. In the end scene credits, the audience is introduced to the iconic J Jonah Jameson, infamous for calling Spider-man a menace, setting up the plot for the next movie.
Courtesy: Polygon
Or so they thought.
With Disney’s Marvel Studio’s and Sony’s foothold on Spider-man still, war broke out. Sony was not pleased with Disney’s avarice, and called the project off. This had dire consequences. Calling off such a project meant that Sony could no longer use any of the Marvel characters’ names or plots. To break it down, it meant that no longer could Tony Stark be mentioned, along with others important to Peter’s character and story arch such as Happy Hogan, Nick Fury, Captain Marvel, and any other character that they may have wanted to use a cameo of in the upcoming movie(s). Fans could not imagine a movie where Peter Parker could no longer mourn his fallen father figure, as it was a major plot device in the second movie of the series.
Courtesy: Polygon
Months went by, and fans feared the worst for the next movie. Some boycotted Sony, and others, Marvel, with one mission in mind: protect Peter Parker. Things became dire as hope was being stretched too thin to dream of a compromise. Many theories were made, and many forums were born to bring the two back together for the sake of the young hero.
Then, daylight broke through:
Disney and Sony made amends, and Tom Holland’s Spider-man was now back in the MCU for his third movie. Fans have none other than to thank but Tom Holland himself, as he became the voice of reason between the two companies, being a hero on screen and in real-life to many heartbroken fans. Holland pleaded with the producers of Disney and Sony alike, and they came to a consensus, this new Peter Parker had the hearts of both fans and companies alike.
Holland posted on his Instagram Leonardo Di Caprio’s Wolf of Wall Street, “I am not leaving” clip to declare the victory won. Zendaya, Hollands co-star and on-screen love interest MJ, also posted a celebrating Spider-man gif. Fans everywhere are relieved and cannot wait for the next movie in the series to come out in July of 2021, though it is a bit of a wait.
Courtesy: ScreenGeek
Yet, for now, the battle is over and won, and Spider-man is where he belongs.
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