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Imagine this, Spider-Man is Sam Bowie and the rest of the Marvel franchise of characters is Michael Jordan. You’re Sony and you have a chance to acquire all of them BUT you decided to put all of your eggs in the Spider-Man basket.
According to new recently revealed information that’s exactly what happened to Sony.
Welp!
Sony had the golden opportunity to own all of Marvel’s characters for just $25 million because at the time the comic book company was struggling. Sony could have had owned Iron Man, Thor, Captain America— and the hottest character on the block right now Black Panther— as well as Spider-Man.
According to an excerpt from a new book, The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies, author Ben Fritz writes that a Sony executive by the name of Yair Landau was approached by Marvel for the deal. Laundau takes the deal back to his bosses and recalls them saying to him, “Nobody gives a sh*t about any of the other Marvel characters. Go back and do a deal for only Spider-Man.”
It was this rejection that helped Marvel make the best decision ever and start making the movies, eventually inking a deal with the iconic mouse. Some might say it was a blessing because Sony might have ruined all of those Marvel movies we have come to love. Sony came around by lending a franchise player to Marvel and we have the new Venom movie on the way. Disney recently acquired Fox and all of its Marvel franchises so, yes, that means no more calling mutants “miracles.”
This is arguably one of the biggest business blunders ever— make sure you head over to The Wall Street Journal for the full excerpt.
