Last night a report came in that simultaneously overjoyed and yet broke the hearts of many Spider-Man fans: It turns out that Marvel and Sony Pictures have had talks about bringing the wallcrawler into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including the Captain America: Civil War movie, but that those discussions had stalled.

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While that revelation came via leaked e-mails and documents (more fallout from the Sony hacking scandal) uncovered by The Wall Street Journal, today Latino Review reports on some additional inside info on the subject.For starters, LR’s Da7e says his source indicates that the deal Sony ultimately rejected was not a Marvel trilogy of Spider-Man movies that Sony would control. While that was mentioned in The Wall Street Journal’s story last night, what Sony finally passed on was instead a co-production arrangement where Marvel and Sony would split Spidey movie costs 60/40 (Marvel paying the 60%). Yes, Marvel would’ve shouldered more cost, but they also would’ve regained creative control over the character and films. This scenario sounds much more like the kind of deal Marvel’s Kevin Feige would be interested in.So that makes more sense in a real-world sort of way, but still, Sony reportedly passed on this approach, preferring to keep Peter Parker and his alter ego in their creative corner. That said, LR’s sources also indicate that Sony Pictures’ parent company is none too pleased about the current situation at the studio and the internal communications and even movies that have leaked out. Additionally, they view “Sony Pictures’s handling of the Spider-Man property as disappointing. … Sony Japan thinks the Marvel deal for Spider-Man is still on the table and they want to renegotiate as a return to quality.” The sources also say that “the 60/40 split” can be negotiated and “Sony Entertainment’s October hard-line stance of wanting creative control is now mostly moot in the eyes of the higher-ups.”Of course, even if this did somehow happen and Spider-Man became part of the MCU, there are still a ton of questions. For one, what happens to Andrew Garfield? Is the character recast? And what about Amazing Spider-Man producer Avi Arad, who has been a guiding force for Marvel and Spidey on the big screen for years? His relationship with Marvel Studios and Kevin Feige is said to be a frosty one since he left the studio, which certainly can’t help matters.And as much as we’d all love to see Spidey join the MCU, there’s another question lurking here as well: Why do superheroes have to be part of a shared universe in order to succeed these days? Can’t standalone movies with these characters still be worthy of our attention?As always, keep it locked to IGN for more on this as we have it.

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