The Sony-Marvel deal is unique, but it’s worked out well for both companies. Sony gives Marvel Studios creative control of the Spider-Man character and his movies, and gets all the profit from those individual features. In return, Marvel Studios can use Spider-Man in a limited number of features. Now Sony is earning to the tune of $1 billion as Spider-Man: Far From Home becomes the first Spider-Man picture and only the second feature in Sony’s history to cross the $1 billion mark. It’s been seven years since the studio hit that $1 billion marker with Skyfall.

The latest Spider-Man movie has earned $333 million domestically and $672 million overseas for a total of $1.005 billion. Per THR, Far From Home is now the “40th movie to cross $1 billion and the third release of 2019 to do so far behind Avengers: Endgame ($2.79 billion) and Captain Marvel ($1.13 billion), both from Disney and Marvel.”

The question now becomes what the future holds for the Spider-Man franchise. Marvel announced its entire Phase Four last weekend at Comic-Con, and there was no Spider-Man title in sight, but it’s not really up to Marvel Studios when a Spider-Man movie release hits the calendar. That falls to Sony Pictures, and if they want another Spider-Man movie in 2021, they could crack the whip on that, and then what?

My assumption is that everyone is going to be smart about this and keep the peace. Sony wouldn’t want to mess with a good thing when it’s getting them $1 billion at the box office, and Marvel doesn’t want to rush out another Spider-Man movie into the middle of their Phase Four plans. If everyone keeps a level head and the is happy with the status quo, I can easily see a Spider-Man 3 arriving in 2022 and having Peter Parker pop up in a couple more Marvel Studios movies. Of course, this assumes people will act reasonably and no one botches this. That’s a major assumption on my part.

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Image via Sony Pictures
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Image via Sony Pictures

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