Sony plans to explore more of the Spider-Man universe without the Web Slinger’s help

Sony has the upper hand since it still has acquired characters in the Spider-Man universe, and they plan to use that to their advantage during this superhero-movie boom.

Sony must be patting itself on the back right now, patiently waiting and holding on to the Spider-Man universe characters that they acquired so long ago. Sure, they’ve made a handful of movies in the last decade or so that have been pretty good. But now they’re in the middle of a superhero boom in film, and they’ve got Disney as an ally to pull them to victory.

Starting back in 2016 when Captain America: Civil War came out, Sony strengthed its ties with Disney by essentially lending Spider-Man to them so he could appear in the MCU. Shortly after, Spider-Man got his first MCU solo movie in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and there’s a lot more planned for the Web Slinger in the future. But even as Disney’s ally, there’s also going to be a bit of competition between the two studios as Sony begins to take advantage of this growing popularity in the superhero genre — without Spider-Man’s help.

With Venom under its belt this year, Sony will continue on its wave of optimism by exploring a slew of other characters they’ve got in their portfolio. Rumors previously surfaced that Sony was in trouble when it stopped moving forward with its Silver & Black movie. But now, it seems that plans stopped because they’d rather the two characters have their own solo movies instead.

“We believe Black Cat is enough of her own character with a great backstory and a canon of material to draw from to justify her own film,” Columbia Pictures President Sanford Panitch said to Variety.

In addition to making solo films for Black Cat and Silver Sable, Variety reports Sony also has movies planned for characters Silk, Jackpot, and Nightwatch. Even though they seem to be on the up-and-up with these planned movies, this seems like Sony is trying to rebound from letting Disney use its star character — and you can’t blame them.

Unlike the first set of Spider-Man movies and The Amazing Spider-Man movies, Spider-Man will no longer be all theirs. So it’s better to keep moving forward with other projects and new characters, than dwelling on the past. But at the same time, these new characters can breathe life into an industry where diversity hasn’t always been a top priority. With characters like Silk, for example, (who is a Korean-American woman), audiences might rally around these movies more because of its commitment to portraying a wider variety of people as heroes.

Addressing that topic in the interview, Panitch said:

"Spider-Man connects to a lot of the characters. There are villains, heroes, and antiheroes, and a lot are female characters, many of whom are bona fide, fully dimensionalized, and utterly unique. We feel there’s no reason the Marvel characters shouldn’t be able to embrace diversity."

Disney is also committed to enhancing diversity on screen, as Homecoming star Zendaya even attested to that. Fox’s X-Men is always improving its lineup of diverse heroes. But it’s not a competition to see whose film can be more diverse than the other. As long as they are all staying in touch with the demand for movies with a well-represents cast, they are on the right track.

Variety also reported that Sony is open to the idea of having Spider-Man universe characters appear in Disney-produced Marvel films. And of course, they would, because who wouldn’t want to work with Disney? Variety also suggested Sony would love to see an Avenger pop up in one of their movies. To which we assume Disney’s reaction to the suggestion would be a simple, “Thanks, but no thanks.”