DaSalvadore

@professorrespect: If you're using genius to mean someone who made something of themselves with their smarts rather than just have them then I'd agree.

I actually would half-prefer Peter not be a genius even by my standards since it's so disappointing to see how little his life has moved on once he left college. Aside from my sheer love of the Peter-MJ relationship, the beauty of that was it was forcing Peter to develop in all areas of his life. Having the family meant he had to grow as a superhero and learn how to work more than one track in his life at the same time.

I hate seeing the return of "always late Peter" who never gets anything done because being Spider-Man gets in the way. Especially with a character who has such potential as that alt version from One More Day.

@professorrespect: That's a really solid argument against Peter being a genius. The thing is though, a genius is a genius regardless of whether they do anything with the innate brainpower.

It's the scientific version of innate skills vs learned skills. A genius who spends all his time pushing his areas of expertise/interests will go much further than someone who isn't a genius working on the same stuff. But a non-genius who is working hard in an area will show more results than a genius who barely does the work.

What Peter is is a "failed" genius. He's one of those guys who could have made a major career in sports but life got in the way. He could (and probably should) have done something with his intelligence beyond the Spider-Man role to improve his life but for numerous reasons never has. His attitude towards his life isn't geared towards having "it all" and so he doesn't know what to do to get there.

@tobymaguire: Because Disney is the bigger dog in this fight which means everyone jumps to protect the little guy, even if the little guy right now is Sony.

As far as not getting recognised, we got that with Captain Marvel's credits. It was respectful. How many more times does it need to be done in the movies until enough is enough?

As for the OP, I don't know enough of the details to say one way or the other what's happened. Stan is one of Marvel's "Walt Disney" and if any company should have respected Stan's death and tried to do something for the family, it should have been Disney, let along Marvel themselves.

On the other hand, I don't know how involved the higher ups for either company saw Stan nor Stan's link to the industry besides being a legacy man and getting his cameos. And how connected was Stan's on-going links to Marvel was his daughter?

In a perfect world one or both companies would have reached out to the family when Stan died. But if everyone high up just saw Stan as a legacy persona then who makes that call could have very easily been a "I thought you did it," "I though you did it," "I though she did it," situation. Or just a "we don't care" if you want to think the worst of everyone.

Both Endgame and Infinity War are average popcorn blockbusters at best if looked at in a vacuum. The reason why I get annoyed when people rate them as such by doing exactly that is that the MCU has made it so that you can't do so and still review/rate the movies fairly.

The MCU is such an interconnected beast that it's grown to where everything feeds off the other. The passionate and heartbreaking rant from Tony in Endgame once he gets back to Earth can't happen that way without the breakup and letter from Cap in Civil War and both don't make as much sense nor have the same weight if not for Ultron which is emotionally driven by both Avengers and Iron Man 3.

And this goes both ways too. I think Captain Marvel was a really enjoyable solid flick that was the third-best intro film for a hero in the MCU behind Black Panther and Iron Man. The problem is it's still a bog-standard hero flick that fits in Phase 1 more than Phase 3 when it came out which means it's just "okay" when linked to everything around it.

For good or ill, every new MCU movie is judged as part of the MCU rather than as a standalone experience (or they should be) and for that alone, the MCU deserves to be spoken about in film courses.

@marvelanddcfan24: I'm bet money that Venom's surprise success is a major driving force behind this decision. Sony now believes they have the chops to create their own mini-franchise universe that's a big moneymaker, coherent, and that isn't going to get destroyed by internal Sony politics/mishandling/pratfalls that Sony has a habit of.

Using Boxofficemojo as a reference, all non-Spider-Man related movies released by Sony in 2019 (11) made an average of $76,171,505.

The two Spider-Man movies this year (Into the Spider-Verse and Far from Home) were controlled by the MCU/Disney and the Sony animation department which is a different entity to the movie studios. They made around 150 times that average.

The four Spider-verse movies since Civil War have an average of $805,519,904.5.

The "problem" is that Sony's previous five Spider-Man movies have an average gross of $792,651,900.8. Sony probably looked at the numbers and felt they still had their magic from the Spider-Man trilogy/Amazing Spider-Man films and that they'd be able to ride the success into their own third Spider-Man franchise to keep the money rolling in.

The counter-argument is that linking the Spider-verse franchise to the MCU basically means Sony could sit back and let other people do the heavy lifting and get the money rather than having to rely on themselves to keep everything and everyone working in the same direction.

This "greedy" attitude is really annoying. I hear it all the time in business and in sports and it ignores the nature of the situations themselves.

The Merch income was always going to Disney/Marvel, it was the nature of the Spider-Man deal when the movie rights got initially sold. Disney was making relative peanuts from a side-franchise that they were practically making off their entire own backs.

Am I saying Sony should have rolled over immediately? No. But it's perfectly understandable for Disney to say "we'd like more of the Box Office money that we're helping make as big as they are."

I'm sure there's a bunch of ego issues and other problems on both sides but the basic idea of Disney wanting more from the Box for a set of films they're making and is tied into their major franchise makes perfect sense.

When did battle mentality fall so low?

X character hits Y character with an object. Three things could happen, Y gets hurt, Y doesn't get hurt, or X puts so much strength into the hit and Y is so strong that the object breaks and you line yourself up for the "oh god I'm boned" moment from wrestling when the Kane/Undertaker type characters no-sell chair shots.

Thanos taking a pipe hit from Thor is Thanos being strong enough to take a pipe hit from Thor. Thor isn't strong enough to hurt Thanos with a pipe because Thanos is just that strong not because Thor is suddenly that weak.

Putting over a character doesn't lower the abilities of the one who puts over, it raises the abilities of the one being put over. Context, backroom issues and history aside.

@firestarlord73194: It might not be that. It could be (and this is also just might be wishful thinking) that he's trying to show that all the old canon has its place in the new status-quo even if he is shaking things up.

They'll need to.

If this fails completely and Sony decides to go their own way and never come back to the table, they're not going to be able to use anything Homecoming/Far from Home related.

Those two films are built upon being involved in the MCU. Vulture's character is born from the New York incident, Spider-Man's suits are Stark Tech, Aunt May is dating Happy Hogan, the snap happened...the list goes on and on about what is intrinsically linked between the two Spider movies and the MCU.

The only way Sony can go their own way with this without Disney kicking up a major stink over referencing the MCU in non-MCU movies is for Sony to reboot the Spider-Man franchise so it fits in their overall larger Spider-Verse of Venom/Black Cat and Silver Sabre et al.

In order for Sony to now have all of the money and all of the control of Spider-Man movies, they would have to reboot the franchise for the fourth time after the most successful Spider-Man of all time.

@asgaard: Here's the rub, what exactly has Spider-Man done that's impacted the MCU beyond Tony Stark's arc (which is over) and the fans reactions? My answer is, not much beyond laying the groundwork for the future. And that can be put aside just like the details of the Hulk movie is/was with the MCU picking and choosing what they carry over from that.

Spidey is a street-level hero who gets caught up in larger than life events and this is coming from a Spider-Man fan. If this deal doesn't get back to the table and done, I can honestly see the two Homecoming movies and his appearances in Civil War and the IW/Endgame movies as fun moments in the MCU that are looked upon fondly but don't have any real significance to the franchise.

However, the split and how it affects everything is massively on Sony's shoulders. If the split doesn't get repaired then Sony can either make a fantastic Spider-verse of their own using everything the MCU did for Homecoming and Far from Home or crash and burn because they get too big for themselves and it falls down the same hole as the previous two Spider-Man runs. And depending on just how much the split soaks into the population's awareness, a crash-and-burn Sony Spider-Verse could negatively affect the MCU's numbers if people end up not realising they aren't the same.