Sony Pictures chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra has said the door on Spider-Man's return to the Marvel fold is closed for the moment.
Speaking at Variety's Entertainment & Technology summit, Vinciquerra, however, provided a glimmer of hope for future, saying, "it's a long life".
He also said that there was no ill will after Sony and Marvel failed to reach a deal on the presence of Spider-Man in future Marvel movies where Tom Holland, with his portrayal of Spider-Man, was fast emerging as a favourite.
Calling the fans backlash over the development "interesting", Vinciquerra said one of the reasons the discussion between Marvel and Sony broke down was because its chief Kevin Feige had been "stretched incredibly thin" with the Disney-Fox merger, which brings Fantastic Four and X-Men properties to Marvel.
"We had a great run with (Feige) on Spider-Man movies. We tried to see if there's a way to work it out... The Marvel people are terrific people, we have great respect for them, but on the other hand we have some pretty terrific people of our own. Kevin didn't do all the work," Vinciquerra said.
Sony chief is confident about Spider-Man's future within the studio and plans to launch a new universe with characters from the web-slinger's world.
"Spider-Man was fine before the event movies, did better with the event movies, and now that we have our own universe, he will play off the other characters as well. I think we're pretty capable of doing what we have to do here," he said, pointing out the recent success of "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse" and Sony-Amazon series "The Boys", which explores the negative side of the superhero culture.
The studio is moving ahead with the sequel of Tom Hardy's "Venom", a film based on the character of Morbius and "five or six" TV series set in the Spider-Man world.
