Why Sony Reportedly Can’t Make Its Own Live-Action Spider-Man Films Featuring Tom Holland

Spider-Man’s complicated ownership situation has confused fans for years, with Sony Pictures holding the film rights to the character while Disney’s Marvel Studios produces the mainline MCU installments starring Tom Holland. That unusual arrangement has led to plenty of speculation about why Sony, despite technically owning the rights, hasn’t simply built its own separate live-action Spider-Man universe around Holland’s version of Peter Parker.

That question has resurfaced in recent discussion, with claims circulating that Sony is effectively blocked from producing its own live-action Spider-Man films because Disney doesn’t want a competing franchise cutting into the MCU’s version of the character. Given how much money both studios make from the joint MCU productions, the idea that Disney would guard that arrangement closely enough to prevent Sony from going solo isn’t an unreasonable assumption on the surface.

According to reporting from Variety’s Adam B. Vary, though, the actual explanation is more nuanced than a straightforward contractual restriction. A Sony source told Vary that the studio’s deal with Disney never actually prevented Sony from using Spider-Man in its own films that didn’t carry his name outright, pointing to the “Spider-Verse” animated franchise’s constant rotation of Peter Parkers, Gwen Stacys, and other Spider-People as proof that Sony has always had creative freedom to work with the character on its own terms.

Instead, Sony made a deliberate internal choice not to feature Holland’s specific version of the character in its own non-MCU films. There was concern within the studio that audiences simply wouldn’t accept Holland’s Spidey unexpectedly appearing in a movie outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe, especially given how firmly ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home,’ along with Marvel projects like ‘Loki’ and ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,’ had already established clear boundaries around the MCU’s multiverse.

That distinction matters significantly for how fans understand Sony’s broader Spider-Man strategy. Rather than being legally barred from using Holland, Sony essentially chose to protect the character’s canonical weight within the MCU, worried that inserting him into unrelated projects like ‘Morbius,’ ‘Madame Web,’ or ‘Kraven the Hunter’ without a clear multiversal explanation could confuse or alienate audiences who’d come to expect strict continuity from the franchise.

That caution came with real costs. Given how consistently Sony’s non-MCU Spider-Man-adjacent films have underperformed compared to the Holland-led MCU entries, it’s widely believed those films could have benefited commercially from featuring the more popular, established version of the character, even if doing so risked complicating the character’s carefully maintained MCU identity.

With Sony’s standalone Spider-Man-universe films appearing to wind down, the studio isn’t necessarily abandoning live-action superhero filmmaking altogether. Reports have suggested Sony could eventually introduce an entirely new, separate live-action Peter Parker, Miles Morales, or Gwen Stacy for its own future projects, allowing it to build a fresh continuity without the baggage of directly crossing over with Holland’s established MCU version.

That path would let Sony keep both worlds intact: Holland continuing to headline mainline MCU installments produced alongside Marvel Studios, while any future Sony-only live-action Spider-Man content could exist in its own separate continuity, free from the audience expectations that come with sharing a single, tightly connected universe.

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