FLASH: Spidey May be Returning to the MCU

Emphasis on the may.

Apple is getting into the streaming business big time. Naturally, they want to be able to produce original content. Today it’s an absolute…indeed, a dire necessity. At one time, back when Steve Jobs walked the land of the living, Apple had close relations with Pixar and then, naturally, Disney. However, there is no such thing as a friendly competitor in Disney’s Universe.

There is no way in hell they would produce original content for Apple TV. No major studio will. Which means one of two things Apple has to either build up their own content production, much like Amazon did (and frankly the time to do that was 2010.) Or buy a studio.

There aren’t too many of those available at this point. The fire sales ended about three years ago. At this point all of the studios are owned by somebody big. So, Apple will have to forget about it.

Except that…

There is one major multi-national that might like to get out the movie business. Sony’s Vue has been a series of rolling disasters for years. It started with the very confusing name of Sony PlayStation Vue. Which had people that own an X-Box or a Ninetendo going, “well I guess that leaves me out,” even though the service was available on Roku and smart TVs. It never got better from there and at this point you can’t be in the movie business without a streaming service. And it’s starting to look like Sony’s view is that, pouring capital into Vue, right when everyone else is starting a streaming service, is throwing good money after bad. As for the films themselves, Sony Picture’s track record is indifferent. The occasional hit here and there but no major franchises, except Spiderman. And they haven’t been able to make a hit out of that without outside help and that help is now withdrawn. Lastly, the Sony CEO that viewed Hollywood as his own little hobby has just retired.

Consequently, Sony may be open to a buy out of Sony Pictures.

According to Yahoo Finance, Apple is indeed looking into buying Sony Pictures. This isn’t fanboy speculation, this is actually happening.

So, Spiderman would be working for Apple? You innocently ask.

No, Sony does not own Spiderman, they own a license with several conditions attached to it. One of which being, if Sony pictures gets bought out, all rights revert to the original IP owner. Which is now Disney.

If this happens expect a major shake up in the MCU line up. Kevin Fiege loves Spiderman and Tom Holland. More importantly…much, much more importantly, so do the fans. Unlike Brie Larson, Tom Holland is actually popular with them because he remembered not to call them Racist, Sexist, Man-Babies.

The scary truth for Disney is that right now Marvel has nothing. There are no mastheads left . Robert Downey is out, Evans is out. They wouldn’t be wrecking Thor if Chris Hemsworth didn’t want out too. If Disney gets Tom Holland back for nothing, they will be dancing down Mainstreet USA.

While there will undoubtedly be SJWs demanding that Milo Morales be made the new Spiderman, I strongly suspect that Disney will opt for a more conservative approach. At least that would be the smart thing to do.

We’ll see one way or another.