GREAT NEWS! Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment have announced today that Sony has agreed to allow Marvel to use Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe!

According to Marvel.com, the deal states that the new Spider-Man will make his first appearance in a Marvel film within the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Thereafter, Sony Pictures will release the next film in its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, scheduled to be released on July 28, 2017. That film will be co-produced by Kevin Feige, along with his team at Marvel and Amy Pascal, the person who oversaw the initial launch of the franchise with Sony some 13 years ago. Together, they will work on developing a NEW creative direction for Spidey. However, this deal will see Sony Pictures continuing to finance, distribute, own and have final creative control over the Spider-Man solo films.

Marvel and Sony are also looking at several possibilities to incorporate various characters from the MCU into future Spider-Man films.

I for one am stoked by this news and cannot wait to see what the future holds for the Spider-Man franchise and the MCU as a whole. Hopefully, a similar deal can be reached in the near future with Fox for the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises. This is a HUGE story, which I will be following the months/years to come!