Update:

It turns out that Sam Raimi, director of the original three Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies, has also been discussed within Sony regarding Spidey's future.

Could Marvel Still Make a Spidey Deal?

Though The Wall Street Journal updated their original story to delete any mention of Raimi, their initial report indicated that the studio has attempted to bring Raimi back to the fold as a director or producer. It's unclear why this was removed from TWSJ's article.Original story follows...

Marvel and Sony have had talks about forming some kind of Spider-Man alliance on the big screen, including the possibility of including the webhead in Captain America: Civil War . Unfortunately for fans, those discussions eventually fell apart.Additionally, it has been revealed that an animated Spider-Man comedy is in development at Sony from producers Chris Miller and Phil Lord (22 Jump Street, The Lego Movie). The Wall Street Journal has the report on this matter, one which is near and dear to the many comic-book fans’ hearts who have often and vociferously wished for Spidey to somehow join the Marvel Studios cinematic universe. The character’s movie incarnation, of course, is contractually in the wheelhouse of competing studio Sony. Rumors had been floating around in recent months that Spider-Man might somehow be reunited with Marvel, and now it seems that chatter was accurate... if ultimately premature.The leaked information on the discussions Marvel and Sony had comes from the trove of documents that have poured out of the latter studio in the wake of the hacking scandal it has been hit with.“The e-mails reveal extensive discussions between executives at Sony and Marvel owner Walt Disney, all the way up to their respective chief executives Kaz Hirai and Robert Iger,” says the paper. “In an Oct. 30 e-mail, Sony Pictures president Doug Belgrad tells [Sony motion picture chief Amy Pascal] about a potential scenario that would see Marvel produce a new trilogy of Spider-Man movies while Sony retains ‘creative control, marketing and distribution.’”How Sony would retain creative control seems unclear considering the tight reign that Marvel’s Kevin Feige holds over his studio’s output. But still, Pascal reportedly relates in one e-mail that Marvel wanted to include Spider-Man in the upcoming third Captain America movie, Civil War. The character is of course an integral part of the comic-book version of that story.All these talks eventually “broke down” and Sony, according to this report, was as recently as late November planning a “Spidey summit” in January to discuss the in-house future of the franchise. Aside from the previously revealed Sinister Six, Venom, and all-female Spider-Man character spin-offs, those plans also include Miller and Lord’s animated comedy.Stay tuned for more on the Spidey/Marvel/Sony situation as we have it, True Believers!

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