How much will Insomniac's Spider-Man game sell? *spawn

Not talking about anyone here mind you, but I cannot believe people are actually clamoring for predatory moves like Disney buying out other companies like Sony (and every other company under the sun for that matter)
So Sony Pictures made a financially sound decision for a change and kept the Spider-man license. Oh my god, the horror of it all.

 

Disney has a Market Cap of 244.943B, while Sony has a 72.37B Market Cap.

And...

Disney has a total shareholder equity of 90.47B as of June 30, 2019, and Sony has a total shareholder equity of 35.65B as of June 30, 2019.

So, the problem isn't Disney being unable to acquire Sony (if they were looking to be acquired), but more so the capital ($) dent it would put on the company finances on doing so. Even when Disney purchased the film and television properties from 21st Century Fox for $71.3B, it sill required external investments, corporate loans and other financial means on completing that deal. Meaning, Disney is paying the Pied Piper(s) involved in the financial part of the acquisition, or granting those investors/financiers a larger share in Disney Corp.

If anything, Disney would only purchase Sony's film and film distribution companies. But as of now, Sony isn't selling their film and television division.

Market Capitalization and Shareholder Equity

 

Financially sound but quite possibly a horrible decision in regards to it's impact of the MCU. That's all the fans care about, and who can blame them?

 

That goes both ways - Disney also made a horrible decision for the MCU.

 

Yeah. I really cannot wait for the PG-rated MCU Blade movie. I mean who doesn't want a bloodless vampire film, right? Also never forget the butchery of Star Wars.
As for Spider-man: if Sony can deliver a life-action Spider-man that comes reasonably close to the quality of their animated movie Into the Spiderverse, all's peachy as far as I'm concerned. I don't think every superhero film needs to follow the popular Marvel formula to be good. I wouldn't mind a more distinctive directorial stamp for a change. You know, like Sam Raimi once did. Or Tim Burton. Or Christopher Nolan. Admittedly the MCU movies are all pretty damn good. But they're also incredibly similar.
And unless the guy's contractually obligated to be an MCU Spider-man only, Tom Holland can still be the principal character of course.

 

From my understanding, movies such as Blade, Deadpool, and many of the other darker theme characters and subjects will be handled under other Disney properties/studios such as Miramax on keeping Disney's image clean (... clean image my ass, but whatever). However, they still will have MCU ties and be treated PG-13 during certain Disney crossovers.

 

This is why few apart from market analysts and traders use market cap. It's meaningless except to those folks and does not represent the actual assets and value of the company, only of the market's uncertain and ever-changing estimate of worth. Companies don't have more or less because of share price changes.

 

Sony is in a position to control their own spiderman universe, it could become coherent between the games, films, series... as a coherent SCU. That would be impossible if they can't produce and direct their own movies. Disney asked for 50/50 split of money, but keep 100% of control to make their own tie in and cameos, so 100% to serve the MCU franchises. Basically Disney tried to have tie-in between the SCU and the MCU, but the offer ended up ripe for a sabotage of the SCU by making it defined by the MCU. Voluntary or just coincidentally.

Disney doesn't want the character unless it serves to increase the character roster of MCU, and they need control, hence their offer.

Sony doesn't want their character tied to the MCU unconditionally without some artistic control, dilluting it, and be unable to use their best character to grow the SCU (which could include the next spiderman game)

 

Sony/Insomniac could have done that already and it's interesting that they didn't get Tom Holland to be that Spider-Man in the game but from what I've read, Insomniac wanted to do their Spider-Man, a more experienced Spider-Man, and Sony let them. The game already has ties to the MCU with the Avengers Tower and Sanctum Sanctorum being in the city and I'm sure I missed lots of other MCU references.

You're right, Sony weren't chasing Disney to get Spider-Man into the MCU, it was Disney chasing Sony. I don't get it, the MCU has more than enough characters and I think you lose some of the drama and tension if your superhero can be bailed out by Thor or Carol Danvers when things get tough.

And this is a problem for the MCU going forward, how do you retain that tension when there are so many superheroes on call? It always struck me odd that Cap didn't call Stark during the events of Winter Soldier. SHIELD is rogue and that the Government don't trust you, why aren't you on the blower to the man who has more money than both and trusts neither? Because if you throw Stark in, he hacks the evil helicarriers removing most of the drama. Do they even, ever, explain where Stark is during these events? If so, I missed it.

 

Comics have always glossed over that. In Marvel's Agents of Shield, you have world threatening events and no heroes around at all, leaving it to a handful of tech-enriched agents a couple of whom have alien-induced powers.

As far as games go, there's an issue with Spider-Man sequels and that's the setting is always New York. When it's a game every five years, it's not so bad, but if Sony want to make something of the SCU with frequent games and TV series and stuff, I can imagine the environment getting old real fast.

 

But does Sony owns now the videogame character??

 

They own this version of the character and story. iFf someone else do a Spiderman game, they can't use the story and another version of the character...

 

But is there any reason to think Sony can make another Spider-man game without Disney's blessing? How long does this deal go? I can see Disney pulling it to negotiate the MCU crossover. This article says, "the future of the Spider-Man console games is with Sony and Insomniac", but I doubt Disney would give Sony an endless license and I haven't found anything specific.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-06-15-spider-man-leads-marvels-epic-new-console-strategy

 

Unless, Sony/Insomniac shapes the SCU more towards the Spider-Verse, and all it's themes and characters. I would love to swing around the UK as William Braddock, or even fighting crime in "Far From Home" types of scenarios where Spider-Man isn't necessarily always in New York.

The Spider-Verse is huge and full of useful (good) material, characters, and themes.

 

I only watched about half of the first season of Agents of Shield (I will get back to it at some point) but this struck me as the inevitable dilemma. They'd need to keep things changing and escalating and eventually you'd be on the realm of just calling Tony Stark, Black Widow or Hawk Eye.

As far as games go, there's an issue with Spider-Man sequels and that's the setting is always New York. When it's a game every five years, it's not so bad, but if Sony want to make something of the SCU with frequent games and TV series and stuff, I can imagine the environment getting old real fast.[/QUOTE]

Sony would need a licence but it's unimaginable that Sony's licensing deal didn't include sequels, like getting Spider-Man into the MCU it was Marvel Games approaching Sony to do a console game and comments from Marvel Games support the idea that Sony have a deal spanning more than one game.

 

All is better now...

Sony, Marvel bury the hatchet so Spider-Man can stay in the MCU
Marvel will now get 25% of first-dollar gross; Disney keeps merchandising rights.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...he-hatchet-so-spider-man-can-stay-in-the-mcu/

 

That deal seems very one-sided at the moment... something isn't being reported.

I wonder if Sony has gotten more exclusive Marvel character rights for games.

 

Did you miss the news today that all the Disney owned channels are coming to PlayStation Vue?

 

It seemed to be reported more as the standard process of renegotiating continued carriage, as the majority of Disney owned channels were already on Vue. However, Vue finally gets FX, National Geographic, and the ACC Network.

“PlayStation Vue delivers a television viewing experience through a seamless user interface that focuses on personalization, and that is an attractive offering as consumers navigate their video options,” said Sean Breen, senior VP, Disney Media Distribution. “We look forward to continue serving subscribers the full value of our content from Walt Disney Television and ESPN, which now includes the FX and National Geographic networks and the newly launched ACC Network.”

 

Didn't catch it.