Amy Pascal, the longtime producer of the Spider-Man series, and Kevin Feige, the CEO of Marvel Studios, have an unusual creative partnership, as they demonstrated in a new interview.
Whilst speaking with the New York Times, about Spider-Man: No Way Home and the future of the wall-crawler, the dynamic-duo addressed Pascal’s previous comments that Tom Holland would star in a new “Spider-Man trilogy”.
Pascal said:
“We’re producers, so we always believe everything will work out, I love working with Kevin. We have a great partnership, along with Tom Rothman, who runs Sony and has been instrumental, a great leader with great ideas. I hope it lasts forever.”
Feige added:
“Amy and I and Disney and Sony are actively beginning to develop where the story heads next, which I only say outright because I don’t want fans to go through any separation trauma like what happened after ‘Far From Home.’ That will not be occurring this time”.
In 2019, the original deal between both studios ended, leading to a financial dispute between Disney and Sony. For a while, it looked like Peter Parker’s time in the MCU sandbox was done. Fourteunetly, cooler heads prevailed and the studios got to work on no way home.
In the interview, Pascal and Feige also discussed how they first collaborated. Feige had worked as an unofficial script consultant on The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Most of his advice wasn’t taken up by Sony. When the film was released to widespread negative reviews, she and Feige met to discuss the next way forward. He suggested a co-production deal, with Marvel studios taking control of the character. She didn’t take the suggestion well.
“I threw a sandwich at him,” she said.
Feige added:
“She said, ‘I really want you to help on this next movie. We have these great ideas for the next one. It’s amazing stuff and I said, ‘I’m not good at that — giving advice and leaving. The only way I know how to help is if we just make the movie for you.’”
Despite Pascal’s initial scepticism, she and Sony eventually warmed to the idea after Feige offered more concrete proposals for how to integrate Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
She said:
“He said ‘I have an idea. What if Tony Stark makes Peter’s suit?’ And as soon as he said that, I understood the possibilities of what we could do together. To have Iron Man and Spidey in the same world, one rooted more in technological innovation — the new suit — and less in medical experimentation, which is where we were confined before, felt so much more modern.”
Since then, each of Marvel’s “Spider-Man” films, starring Tom Holland and produced by Pascal, has been a critical and commercial triumph, with most fans dubbing Holland “the best Spider-Man ever”.
Personally, as a fan. I’m excited to see where this partnership goes. They’ve opened up the multiverse now and with Sony continuing to make their own Marvel movies, the possibilities are truly endless.
