Disney May Lose Spider-Man To Sony. It's Their Own Fault.

According to a report from Deadline, everyone's favorite web-slinging superhero may be leaving the Marvel Cinematic Universe because of disagreements between Sony Pictures and Walt Disney Studios; with Disney wanting a 50/50 financial stake in future Spider-Man films and Sony wanting to stay with the deal that allowed Disney--as IGN put it--only 5% of the box office returns.

Disney refused, not even accepting an alleged "70/30" deal offered to them by Sony. And now unless a new deal can be made that will make both companies happy, Sony may take Spider-Man away from Disney and put him into their own planned universe, the Venom-verse. Meanwhile, Disney will be left with Captain Marvel, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and several other heroes who don't have the same recognition as any of Marvel's other characters.

Here's the thing: as far as I'm concerned, Disney is being greedy. They already make money off of Spider-Man through toys and merchandise, as well as the 2017 animated Spider-Man series on Disney XD (pictured above). Meanwhile, Sony's only way of making money off of Spider-Man outside the MCU is with Venom, the upcoming sequel, and other planned films such as the Jared Leto-led Mobius picture. Both companies make enough money off of Spider-Man as is, there is no reason to change what isn't broken and Disney tried anyway because they suddenly want more money than Sony.

Marvel's plans at the moment for Phase Four of the MCU don't really seem to grab a lot of serious attention as far as I can tell, most likely because most of what's in it centers around characters that mainstream audiences have never heard of. The fact that some of these characters are being genderbent and racebent seemingly for the sake of diversity and representation--something I personally find to be rather unnecessary--doesn't really help. Not to mention concerns that Spider-Man is growing closer to being the next Iron Man rather than becoming his own man. Disney and Sony need to get back to working together again, and Disney especially needs to understand that Spider-Man is not a cash cow to be taken advantage of.

Spider-Man lives by the motto, "with great power, there must also come great responsibility". Disney seemingly fails to understand what that means. And that could cost them.