By Ananya Nrusimha
Right now, the rights to portray Marvel comic book characters on film are split between three different companies. Fox has the X-Men, Sony has both Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, and Marvel has everyone else.
However, Marvel is trying to buy the rights to Spider-Man from Sony so they can use the character in their 2016 film Captain America 3: Civil War. If this happens, then actor Andrew Garfield (who portrayed the character in The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel) will most likely not be able to play Spider-Man in the film.
It’s important to keep in mind that we don’t necessarily need another origin film to introduce Spider-Man to the Marvel universe. The upcoming Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice will introduce several characters to the nascent DC Cinematic Universe without giving them fully-fledged origin films. It’s possible that Marvel could do something similar with Spider-Man and other characters in upcoming Marvel films.
Even though I loved Mr. Garfield’s Peter Parker, I think this is probably a good decision. The Spider-Man in Civil War is a fully-fledged adult who’s highly respected by his peers in the superhero community. The Peter Parker in the Amazing Spider-Man films is a very different character; he’s a teenager who’s still an unknown to the superhero community. It would make sense that a new actor would be brought in to the play the more mature version of Spider-Man that Civil War requires.
That being said, I’m starting to wonder if bringing Civil War to the big screen is a good idea. The Fantastic Four (who Sony also own) are as integral to the plot of Civil War as Spider-Man. However, it’s very unlikely that Marvel will be able to obtain the rights to the Fantastic Four because Sony is planning on releasing a Fantastic Four movie next year.
Marvel could potentially use other characters as stand-ins for the Fantastic Four. They’ll only have Ant Man to introduce any new characters on the big screen, however. While Marvel TV shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Agent Carter could also be used to introduce characters, viewers who only watch the movies could become confused when they walk into Civil War. The story relies on the reputations of established characters to create its intended effect, so new characters probably shouldn’t be introduced during Civil War itself.
The lack of characters makes simplifying the story essential. It would probably be prudent to cut out any plot points that don’t pertain to characters that Marvel already owns. While Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four’s subplots are excellent and add a lot of depth to the story, you can still understand the themes without them. However, Marvel’s attempts to get Spider-Man imply that Marvel attempts to show Civil War in its entirety on screen. Clearly, this’ll be difficult to do unless Marvel is able to acquire some more characters.
It should be noted that much of this is just speculation—we’ll have to wait until more official Civil War details are announced to get a better idea of what the film will be like.
