Sony is bringing back Spider-Man: Far From Home scribes Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers to write the next Spider-Man movie, which is expected to star Tom Holland despite all the drama surrounding the character this past week.

It's unclear whether Jon Watts will return to direct Spider-Man 3, even though Far From Home broke the billion-dollar mark at the box office en route to becoming Sony's highest grossing movie of all time. It was Kevin Feige who brought Watts into the Marvel fold on the heels of his low-budget indie thriller Cop Car, and Deadline reports that Marvel is eager to hang on to the filmmaker in the wake of its split from Sony. Could we see Watts spurn the Spidey franchise to take a plum directing gig at Marvel? It's certainly within the realm of possibility.

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Image via Sony Pictures

Marvel and Sony aren't the only ones who will be courting Watts for their tentpoles, as you can bet that Universal, Paramount and Warner Bros. would love to be in business with the director, not to mention the streaming services that would kill to slap "From the Director of Spider-Man: Far From Home" in front of one of their projects. So Watts is in an enviable position right now, and it'll be interesting to see how his career unfolds from here.

I still don't believe that the dust has settled here, as Disney and Sony seem to be openly negotiating in the press. We've seen reports of a 50-50 co-financing arrangement (Deadline) come down to 30% for Disney (THR) and eventually, as high as 25% (Variety). Deadline changed its tune Friday, reporting that Disney would settle for 25%, and under that arrangement, it would also pick up 25% of the tab -- but only for movies that involve Marvel and Feige, who the trade claims would gladly make time in his busy schedule to work on the Spider-Man movies, which are near and dear to his heart.

The two sides aren't in any rush to figure things out, as Marvel has plenty of top-notch IP to tide itself over with, so Spidey's absence in the MCU won't be felt for several years. Here's hoping cooler heads prevail and both sides return to the negotiating table, because otherwise, it's a lose-lose for them, and most importantly, for Spider-Man fans.

For the latest on Spider-Man, peruse the links below:

 

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Image via Sony Pictures Releasing
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Image via Sony Pictures