Merchandising Rights Key To Marvel-Sony Spider-Man Deal

Wondering why Marvel didn’t push even harder to secure all the film rights to Spider-Man in its deal with Sony? It’s because a revitalized Spider-Man movie franchise still has the potential to benefit Marvel’s bottom line in a big way, thanks to something the great Yogurt once told us in Spaceballs: “Merchandising, merchandising.”

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While Sony gets to continue making Spidey movies and retains creative control (though with Marvel’s Kevin Feige keeping a watchful eye as co-producer), Marvel retains the merchandising rights to the character, something that The Hollywood Reporter says could be worth much more than any box office cut.

Impossible, you say? Actually, it’s very possible, at least if current sales of super hero merch stay roughly the same over the next few years. An earlier story in THR found that Spider-Man sells more licensed products than any other hero or team of heroes in North America, and much more than the next closest character (that would be Batman) worldwide. That’s even taking into consideration what we could reasonably guess was low demand for toys and merch for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, given its lukewarm reception at the box office.

If Spider-Man was cool again at the movies, it’s not hard to imagine that figure rising even more, with Marvel cashing in big time. And indeed, an unnamed producer told THR that consideration was key to the deal, both in terms of Marvel’s willingness to accept less than total capitulation and Sony being agreeable to bargain in the first place:

"Sony would never have made this deal if they still retained the merchandising rights. Even a poorly performing movie could be saved by strong merchandise sales, and Spider-Man is one of the bigger brands out there."

As it turns out, Yogurt really was wise, just a bit ahead of his time.

Next: Which Marvel movie will be first to feature Spider-Man?

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