Marvel Studios President Addresses the Future of Fox and Sony Characters in the Setting
As always whenever there’s a big Marvel Studios release just around the corner, Kevin Feige is answering an abundance of questions from the press, and with the Disney-Fox merger complete and Spider-Man: Far From Home laying the groundwork for future Marvel and Sony collaborations, many queries are about how they’ll factor into the MCU. Here’s what he has to say about Fox-Marvel and Sony-Marvel characters.
Speaking with Fandango, Feige explained that right now, they are in the early phases of figuring out how to integrate Fox’s massive library of X-Men and Fantastic Four characters (many of whom have not been adapted across twenty years of movies) into the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
“It’s still early days, but it’s been a fun exercise, and it’s one, by the way, that we’ve been doing for years. Every development meeting starts with cool ideas and fun ideas, and our wheels are always turning in terms of what if… to use a Marvel publishing term. What if we did this? What if we did that? What if we had access to such and such characters? That’s how Spider-Man: Homecoming came together in the first place, and it’s fun to now be in this position with the Fox characters, too, because if we come up with a great “What If” we can actually do it.”
Feige also noted that he would not be opposed to having an approach of introducing some of these characters by having their first appearances be in the standalone movies of other characters. This approach was utilized to bring both Black Panther and Spider-Man into the story of Captain America: Civil War before spinning both characters off into successful standalones. However, he noted that this would be done on a case-by-case basis, and that he thinks there’s value in letting some characters debut in their own standalone film first. For now, Feige said that he’s just happy to have the vast majority of Marvel’s character in a single toybox.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Feige also talked with CinemaBlend about where things stand with Sony’s Marvel movies. Sony are partnered with Marvel Studios to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there are a host of other characters that they plan to use exclusively for the time being, starting with last year’s Venom. When asked specifically if he thinks that Spider-Man could appear in a future Venom movie, he notes that such a decision would be up to Sony, but he implies that it wouldn’t be Tom Holland’s take on the character:
“I think probably it’s up to Sony. Sony has both those characters and, has Venom in their world. I don’t know what their plans are for another Venom or if they’re doing that. But it seems likely at some point.”
Feige makes the distinction that he’s not involved with those potential plans, and as such, fans should not expect to see Tom Hardy’s version of Venom in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What happens in Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters stays in Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters, it seems. The plus side is that, if Sony casts their own Spider-Man, then that would theoretically leave Marvel Studios free to cast their own versions of some of the characters that Sony are using at some point down the road. For now, however, we’ll have to wait and see about what the future holds for Sony’s spin-offs as the new Spider-Man movies continue to build up momentum for the webslinger.
The film’s synopses are as follows:
Following the events of Avengers: Endgame, Spider-Man must step up to take on new threats in a world that has changed forever.
Peter Parker returns in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the next chapter of the Spider-Man: Homecoming series! Our friendly neighborhood Super Hero decides to join his best friends Ned, MJ, and the rest of the gang on a European vacation. However, Peter’s plan to leave super heroics behind for a few weeks are quickly scrapped when he begrudgingly agrees to help Nick Fury uncover the mystery of several elemental creature attacks, creating havoc across the continent!
Spider-Man: Far From Home will be released on July 2, 2019.
Grant Davis is a freelance writer who has covered entertainment news for more than seven years. His articles have frequently appeared in Star Wars News Net as well as as other entertainment-related websites. As someone who grew up on Star Wars and comic book movies, he’s completely thrilled with the current era of genre entertainment.
