The entire Spider-Man situation between Disney and Marvel has been extremely messy from the start, but we did get some good MCU films out of it, and fun moments like the Maguire/Garfield return.
But now a new report from sometimes-insider DanielRPK says that Spider-Man 4, which does not have a place on the announced MCU calendar yet, will be the film that finally bridges the gap between the Sony Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe they’ve built, and the MCU proper.
This is likely some sort of multiverse trickery, but we’ve already seen the seeds for this planted. Tom Hardy’s Venom appeared in the post credits scene for Spider-Man: No Way Home, apparently transported into the MCU by the events of the film. But with Venom 3 on the way, I’m not sure if that’s supposed to take place there or what.
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The second one was even more confusing when Morbius meets Michael Keaton’s Vulture, the MCU villain of the first Spider-Man film, though again, it’s not clear if this is some alternate dimension version of him or what.
This all feels like it’s going to be very weird. In theory, the Spider-Man villains that will warp over to the MCU would be Venom, Carnage, Morbius and the upcoming Kraven. And though Madam Web is positioned as a “standalone” film, whatever that means, it could bring her, two Spider-Women and Spider-Girl over, if that is also merging.We’ve already done the Spider-Man villain warp thing once, albeit that was the villains from the Raimi movies and the Amazing movies, not the Sony universe outside of that Venom scene, really. But while Tom Hardy’s goofy Venom is pretty well-liked by fans, Morbius was so bad it became a meme, and I don’t think anyone is holding out a ton of hope that Kraven and Madame Web are going to be amazing.
I don’t know, it all seems a bit far-fetched for this to actually happen. I know it’s what Sony wants to happen, but does Disney want a bunch of ho-hum Sony villains to invade their generally beloved Spider-Man series? That feels like a stretch, particularly with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man supposedly having a huge role in the MCU going forward.
It would be a little surprised if this actually played out as the report says. Then again, it also feels like Spider-Man is running out of mainline villains that have not already appeared from the No Way Home warp, or the ones covered by Sony. Though half the time Spider-Man has been battling other MCU villains in various crossover films, so we’ll see.
