It’s been a trying week for our boy Tom. With Spider-Man’s fate less than certain under the messy and unexpected divorce of Sony and Marvel, it’s been left to the Internet to memeify and speculate.
Taking it on the chin, Tom has been quiet on the media front (his dad has handled the press), only now breaking his silence to post a picture of himself and Robert Downey Jr. on Instagram. The pictures, selfies of the pair, are captioned: “We did it, Mr Stark!” — unmistakably signalling the end of the partnership as we know it. There are also a handful of pics with the co-stars and each others’ action figures. I’m not crying, you are!
After seeing that, I’m sure as hell not feeling too good, and the reaction from fans and co-stars alike has been pretty ubiquitous: everyone is pretty devastated that he’s facing the end of his stint. Mark Ruffalo replied with three sad emojis, which speaks for all of us.
The conflict doesn’t necessarily mean the end of Tom Holland as Spidey — it’s possible he’ll appear in further films — but it does mean the current arrangement with Spidey in the MCU is at an end. This comes just weeks after the announcement that this summer’s Far From Home has made some of the best box office takings of any Spider-Man film to date.
Back in March we had high hopes for seven more years of Sony/Marvel content, but as news broke earlier in the week that the studios faced a disagreement concerning profits, things have become a little more complicated. Sony, who own the rights to Spider-Man, have pulled out of the partnership in an attempt to recoup some of their losses under the megacorp — who reportedly demanded 50% of the profits. Pretty crazy if you ask me.
Spider-Man’s dropping from the franchise spells the end of the line for this peaceful studio collaboration at least (perhaps for the age of monopolising mega-studios.) Talking about Spider-Man’s future, Sony stated earlier this week that it was “disappointed” with Disney’s choice but ultimately “respects” the decision.
Ah well. If not the MCU, we can always look forward to the Venom sequel.
Spider-Man’s Tom Holland reunites with Robert Downey Jr amid Sony/Marvel split [Digital Spy]
Tom Holland breaks his silence after Spider-Man ‘dropped’ from MCU [Independent]
