The tangled (legal) web of SPIDER-MAN

By: Patrick Sauriol
Date: Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Source: The Hollywood Reporter, Variety

For the better part of a decade the movie rights to SPIDER-MAN were in a legal limbo. This tangled web was eventually ironed out by the courts and Sony Pictures emerged as the winner, going on to earn almost a billion dollars worldwide from the first SPIDER-MAN film. With a sequel already greenlit and shooting right now, you would think that everyone involved with Marvel's wall-crawler is happy and content...

Think again, true believers.

Marvel is suing Sony for more than $50 million dollars in damages including fraud on Sony's part as well as the movie studio trying to downplay and distance Marvel's claims to the character. The company also wants its existing agreement with Sony to be rendered null and void, thereby ending the possibility of a third SPIDER-MAN movie at Sony unless a new deal can be struck. Sony has countered with its own lawsuit, saying that Marvel is smearing the facts and trying to maneouver Sony from making its fair share of revenue from the Marvel character.

Yesterday a Los Angeles Superior Court unsealed the Marvel lawsuit, revealing these details to the public (except for two areas which the judge deemed contained sensitive material.) At the very least, the lawsuits are the worst kind of attention to bring to the two companies; with Sam Raimi already filming SPIDER-MAN 2 and a release date stamped out for next summer, it's bad publicity for the studio. For Marvel, it may give other movie studios pause to reconsider licensing one of the remaining Marvel superhero characters.


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