Based on a comment of jest I heard on a podcast a few years back during the otl deal, what if Sony at any point during its ownership of the film rights of Spiderman, sold it to DC?
Sony sells spiderman to DC.
- Thread starter Pauh the federalist
- Start date
In which case, we might see Bruce Wayne instead of Tony Stark as Peter's father figure.
First, are they allowed to do that? (I'm genuinely curious.)
Secondly, even if they did, they would sell it to TimeWarner (DC's parent company), not to DC itself. It would also be a bit ironic that ABC (which is owned by Disney) makes Gotham, whilst Warner Brothers make Spider-Man films...
Secondly, even if they did, they would sell it to TimeWarner (DC's parent company), not to DC itself. It would also be a bit ironic that ABC (which is owned by Disney) makes Gotham, whilst Warner Brothers make Spider-Man films...
Maybe we’d see a Stan Lee cameo in a Live Action DC movie. If they put Spidey in a DC movie such as Justice League, it would give a reason for Stan Lee to show up. Plus, he showed up in Teen Titans Go to the Movies IOTL, and that had no marvel character. (That I remember anyway)
Before Marvel Studios began attempting to consolidate the film rights to their characters, said rights would often cycle very quickly between different studios. Interestingly enough, before the film rights to Venom went to Sony, an adaptation was developed by New Line Cinema... which is under the same corporate umbrella as DC Comics. Beyond the Spider-Man supporting cast, New Line also famously released the Blade movies with Wesley Snipes and attempted to produce a Deadpool film before they were caught in a rights dispute with Fox. As for Warner Bros, that studio apparently nearly bought the film rights to Captain America in the early 2000s.
There are a few issues here, though. Firstly, when exactly does Sony attempt to unload the Spider-Man rights in this scenario? The character is the basis of their single most successful franchise, to the point where they were reticent to even share the rights with Marvel Studios. If a Spider-Man movie bombs badly enough that Sony lets the rights revert, I cannot see any other studio wanting to swoop in and buy them. The brand would probably be thoroughly tainted in such a scenario.
And even if Spider-Man ends up at Warner Bros or New Line, there is essentially no way that the character would actually share the screen with a DC superhero. For context, Fox apparently had trouble setting up a cinematic crossover between the X-Men and Fantastic Four, even though they are all Marvel characters. Fox had inked separate deals for the different characters (though another studio was also part of the mix with Fantastic Four), so they would have needed Marvel’s consent to make such a movie, which was apparently never granted. If that did not happen, then I cannot imagine Marvel allowing a crossover between one of their characters (much less their flagship superhero) and a character from another universe.
To be clear, in such a scenario, Marvel would have consented to the rights transfer. As to whether they attempt to memory-hole the characters, it would likely depend on the exact terms of the merchandising agreement with Warner Bros. Remember, even before Marvel Studios and Sony signed a deal to share the character, Spider-Man was never treated the same way as the X-Men and Fantastic Four in the comics or merchandising, as I think that Marvel pocketed all of the merchandising sales. In return, Sony kept all of the box office receipts.
In the event that legal issues prevent sale as a premise, an alternative may be a reverse of the idia with sony purchasing DC outright like how disney bought marval, thereby allowing for spiderman to be in DC properties without marval/disney being able to block the deal as spiderman is never transferring ownership.
SsgtC
Banned
Except Sony does not own Spiderman. They own the film rights. Spidey is still owned by Marvel. So putting Spiderman into DC would require DC buying the property outright from Marvel
Then, just to be petty and screw with the MCU, DC does not permit spidey to be used in any film formats ever, and bins the character, permanently as far as movie formats are concerned. Twitter and reddit crash due to flame wars and outrage of MCU fans.
I am aware but they should still be able to use what they own, movies (and possibly TV shows as they owned the TV rights until they sold them back in 2009) and there may be some flexibility in this regard as sony owns not just the live-action film rights but also the animated film rights which they have exercised recently with projects like spider verse which may see more use under DC or as a part of DC properties if sony where to buy them. The reason for this is that one of DC's strengths is its handaling of animated film which is one of the areas that it has been beating marvel in for a while.
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