When Spider-Man made his MCU debut, it was Joe and Anthony Russo who directed it in Captain America: Civil War. The duo have been behind more Spider-Man appearances than even director Jon Watts, having also steered his life, death, and resurrection in Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame. So perhaps more than anyone other than Kevin Feige, they know the difficulties in the deal Disney struck with Sony, and aren’t at all surprised to see that deal fall through.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, the Russos talked about what it was like to guide Spider-Man’s earliest adventures in the MCU, and how that prepared them to see him go just a few years later…
“We were extremely passionate about [having Spider-Man in ‘Civil War’]. This is something we really wanted to happen, and fought a long time internally at Marvel to make it happen,” Anthony Russo said.
“It wasn’t easy. Kevin [Feige] went through a lot. There were a lot of ups and downs, and he kept walking into our office and we’d go, ‘Look, we’ve got to do it with [Sony],’ and he’d go, ‘OK, I’ll figure it out,’ and walk back into his. He was looking for the way out. He wanted to open that door and have us go, ‘We figured it out! We don’t need Spider-Man!’ because it’s a lot of work to get two major corporations to play nice with each other, and the fact that it happened at all, we should all be dancing and celebrating that we got that little bit of time,” added Joe Russo.
Because the Sony/Disney deal was so tenuous to begin with, the Russos never really expected it to last that long. Turns out they were right.
“I think that’s why Joe and I are not so devastated or surprised that there’s been a falling-out, because it was so hard to make it happen in the first place,” Anthony said.
With Sony’s top brass saying the “door is closed” on any new deals with Marvel, the chances of things suddenly turning around are pretty slim, and slim just got blown up by one of Mysterio’s drones. I wouldn’t put it past the Russos working with Tom Holland again, though, as they’ve been scoring a number of ex-Marvel colleagues for their production company.
