Marvel Fans Planning To Storm Sony And Bring Spider-Man Back To The MCU

You can breathe easy, Area 51... the internet has found a new target for its ire.

A Facebook event page has been created with the title, "Storm Sony and Bring Spider-Man Home to the MCU." The event is to take place on Saturday, October 19 — giving Sony pictures nearly two months to get a deal done, and avoid being, er, stormed.

In case you've been hiding under a bridge or camping out on the Moon for the last couple days, the page was created in response to news that broke earlier this week: that talks between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, which had shared custody of the wall-crawler for the past four years, had broken down, leading to the distinct possibility that Tom Holland's Peter Parker will no longer appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Response to this news has been swift and rather overwhelming; Sony released a self-serving statement pinning the talks' collapse on Marvel and its parent company Disney, Stan Lee's daughter Joan Celia Lee has gone public with some absolutely brutal words for the House of Mouse, and a Change.org petition urging Sony to come back to bargaining table popped up, promptly garnering in excess of 80,000 signatures.

Meanwhile, interested parties from actor Jeremy Renner (who portrays Clint Barton/Hawkeye in the MCU) to Tom Holland's father Dominic have publicly weighed in with their takes, shell-shocked writers across the internet have engaged in fevered speculation as to what Spidey's departure might mean for the future of the MCU, and the entirety of Twitter lost its freaking mind. 

All of this happened in the few days after Spider-Man: Far From Home, the web-slinger's second Sony-produced solo venture in the MCU, became Sony Pictures' highest-grossing film of all time, and in the few days before Disney's D23 expo, during which fans had hoped against hope for any news regarding a third MCU-set Spider-Man feature. It's been a weird and stressful time for Spider-Man fans, is what we're saying.

So stressful, in fact, that an absurd number of fans are apparently ready to physically travel to Sony Pictures' New York City and Culver City, California, offices to harangue the studio into returning to the bargaining table. The Facebook event page currently has 8,000 users marked as "Going," with another 6,500 marked as "Interested." 

Lest you think that civil unrest is being encouraged, however, fear not: Sony will face nothing more than a sea of angry Spider-Men and Spider-Women loudly voicing their collective opposition to the studio's failure to re-up the deal with Marvel. The page's Details section reads, "We storm Sony Pictures in solidarity dressed in Spider-Man costumes and bring our boy home! This is a peaceful demonstration and violence will not be tolerated."

Among those participating in the event: Nate Phillips, the very same guy who created the Change.org petition. Supporters from all over the world have followed the event, with more than a few threatening to boycott Sony Pictures releases — and even, gasp, make the switch from Sony's Playstation gaming console to Microsoft's Xbox — in response to the brouhaha.

The petition, worldwide fan outcry, and potential storming have got to be an enormous pain in the keister for Sony Pictures' brass, who gritted their teeth and watched as Sony's stock experienced a significant drop in the wake of the news. If said brass weren't already aware that Spider-fans were heavily invested in their favorite hero remaining at home in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, they certainly are now — and while execs at Marvel Studios (including, notably, head honcho Kevin Feige) have so far been mum on the situation, it's not a stretch to opine that this level of backlash to the breakdown of talks between the two studios might very well push the involved parties back into the negotiating room.

It's worth remembering that there is a precedent for this. The initial deal between Marvel and Sony was first proposed in 2014, but those talks similarly stalled before an agreement could be reached. Then, fate intervened: a series of emails between Sony Pictures executives was made public late that year, and the revelation that the studios had indeed been discussing a shared custody arrangement in regards to Spider-Man — and that nothing had come of these talks — prompted Spidey die-hards around the world to, well, freak out.

The public response to the leaked emails was undoubtedly a factor in the deal eventually getting done in early 2015, and it's not outside the realm of possibility to think that the extremely similar dynamic at play here could cause those involved to take a hard look at restarting negotiations. For that matter, eight little words buried in the middle of Sony's statement — "We hope this might change in the future" — indicate that the studio is at least somewhat open to resuming talks. 

At any rate, having thousands of sign-waving Spider-people — all ticket-buying moviegoers, to be sure — show up outside their offices to voice their displeasure is sure to give Sony Pictures' brass pause. We have a sneaking suspicion that this ordeal is far from over, and you can rest assured that we'll be here to report on any important developments.