Buy me a coffeeSpiderman (Films)
Spider-Man, a comic book superhero created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and featured in Marvel Comics publications, has currently appeared in ten live-action films since his inception, not including fan made shorts and guest appearances in other Marvel Cinematic Universe(MCU) films. Spider-Man is the alter-ego of Peter Parker, a talented young freelance photographer and aspiring scientist imbued with superhuman abilities after being bitten by a radioactive/genetically-altered spider.
The first live-action film based on Spider-Man was the unauthorized short Spider-Man by Donald F. Glut in 1969. This was followed by Spider-Man, an American made-for-television film that premiered on the CBS network in 1977. It starred Nicholas Hammond and was intended as a backdoor pilot for what became a weekly episodic TV series.
The rights to further films featuring the character were purchased in 1985, and moved through various production companies and studios before being secured by Sony Pictures Entertainment (Columbia Pictures) for $10 million (plus 5% of any movies’ gross revenue and half the revenue from consumer products), who hired Sam Raimi to direct Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and Spider-Man 3 (2007) starring Tobey Maguire. The first two films were met with positive reviews from critics, while the third film received a more mixed response. In 2010, Sony announced that the franchise would be rebooted. Marc Webb was hired to direct, with Andrew Garfield starring, and The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) was released to positive reviews. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) saw mixed reviews.
In February 2015, Disney, Marvel Studios and Sony announced a deal to share the Spider-Man film rights, leading to a new iteration of Spider-Man being introduced and integrated into the MCU. The deal allows Sony to distribute and have creative control over MCU films where Spider-Man is the main character, while Disney distributes the ones where he is not. Tom Holland portrays this younger version of Spider-Man, appearing in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), as well as a sequel to Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019). All of Spider-Man’s MCU appearances have received positive reviews thus far.
Plans for an animated Spider-Man film were officially announced by Sony in April 2015. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) combines Sony Pictures Imageworks‘ computer animation pipeline with traditional hand-drawn comic book techniques, inspired by the work of Miles Morales‘s co-creator Sara Pichelli. Completing the animation required up to 140 animators, the largest crew ever used by Sony Pictures Animation for a film.
Raimi’s trilogy grossed nearly $2.5 billion worldwide on a $597 million budget, while Webb’s films grossed over $1.4 billion on a $480 million budget. Spider-Man: Homecoming grossed over $880 million on a $175 million budget. The Spider-Man films have grossed over $4.8 billion collectively.