Iron Man is dead. It it looks as if his heir, Peter Parker, has died too. On Tuesday August 20th, Marvel fans everywhere received shocking news that left many perturbed. Spider-Man, one of the most beloved Marvel characters, is not going to be appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  This is because the rights to Spider-Man is not fully owned by the Marvel company.

In 1996 Marvel declared bankruptcy and was in major debt. They owed 1.7 million dollars to Disney, so they sold most of their characters to a plethora of different companies. After the very successful Iron Man franchise (2008-2013), Marvel was able to get back on their feet and regain the rights to the majority of their characters. In 1999 Marvel Studios sold the rights to the one and only Spider-Man for a whopping 7 million dollars. The original deal between Sony and Disney was Disney pays for the production of the film, gets full merchandise rights, but only gets 5% of the opening day sales while Sony takes the rest. Disney came up with a new proposal that each company goes 50/50, they each pay their half for production costs, and split the profits evenly. Sony declined with no counter proposal, meaning that the web-slinger wont be back with the Avengers anytime soon. 

Overall, fans are quite upset. In Spider-Man Far From Home, they ended the movie with a major cliffhanger and a plot twist. They left fans hanging, filled with anticipation for the sequels contracted previously. There are supposedly two more movies still in the making, but will they keep the same actors? Will it lose all connection with the M.C.U.? Will we just get another reboot? Tony Stark is a very critical influence on the teenage superhero, but if there is no longer a connection with the M.C.U. what will happen to Peter? Although many are dismayed by this news, some are happy or even excited. This could lead to sequels of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, crossovers in Venom, or even Spider-Man reboots with fan favorite villains from comics that haven’t debuted on screen yet.

We will just see what the future beholds…