It seems that the Sony versus Marvel rivalry has been bubbling along for a while as rumours are now emerging that Tom Holland filmed a Spidey cameo for Venom – the Tom Hardy Gets Possessed By An Alien Spider-Man Outfit movie – but the scene was reportedly nixed at Marvel’s insistence.
For those not entirely across their Spider-lore, Venom is a Spider-Man villain-slash-character of ambiguous moral standing which is owned by Sony.
And now, despite all the fervent wishes to the contrary, Spider-Man is back in the Sony fold and out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe after Disney (who owns Marvel these days) and Sony (who bought the rights to Spider-Man ages ago, back when the MCU wasn’t even a crazy fever dream in Kevin Feige’s scone) couldn’t agree on terms for future movies.
And poor little Tom Holland was stuck in the middle, weeping in a pile of webbing (we assume).
And this bitter rights battle is a sad thing for all of us that love the MCU, sure – but it might do Sony a power of good since Venom was the most wildly and unexpectedly successful use of a Marvel property they’ve had in a good long while, and a Spidey/V-bomb team up would be a smash.
And come on, who do you think would win in a Holland-vs-Hardy stoush? I mean, Tom has a dancer’s grace and all but it wouldn’t even be close, surely?
Now, at this point this is all speculation and rumour and delicious possibility for the next Venom film, which might be absolutely filled with Spiders-Men. Or maybe Disney/Marvel and Sony will sort out their differences and make nice, and Venom will have to… um, what does he do, exactly?
Time will tell. Time, and endless corporate copyright battles.