Durex Condoms Have a Hilariously NSFW Reaction to the Marvel/Sony Spider-Man Split

The internet has been a hotbed of both rage and comedy since the news broke yesterday that the [...]

By Russ Burlingame

The internet has been a hotbed of both rage and comedy since the news broke yesterday that the "shared custody" agreement between Disney's Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures Entertainment, which saw Spider-Man appearing in Marvel Cinematic Universe movies and MCU characters coming over to Spider-Man films, was being abandoned. The deal had been met with massive excitement back when Spider-Man first joined the MCU in 2015's Captain America: Civil War, and the news that it's apparently over -- at least for now -- has fans in a tizzy.

There are already fan petitions to halt it, rumors that it isn't entirely true anyway, and a pretty impressive social media meltdown. At one point last night, variations on "Spider-Man," "Spidey," "Marvel," and "Sony" were taking up four of the top five U.S. trending spots on Twitter. Even today, a "save Spider-Man from Sony" hashtag trended as fans threatened to literally storm Sony headquarters for...some reason. But the best take comes from Durex in India:

...I mean, you gotta hand it to them. When you're a condom company, it's pretty bold to have your brand associated with a bunch of headlines with the word "split" in them.

According to the initial report on the breakup, the bone of contention is a deal would give Disney its stake in the Spider-Man franchise while also bringing Sony's extended universe of Spider-Man movies such as Venom into the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper. Sony turned the offer down outright without so much as a counteroffer. Sony seems not to want to share what is its biggest film franchise. It instead preferred to keep the current arrangement intact, which sees Disney receiving an approximate 5% of each Spider-Man movie's first-dollar gross. Marvel chief Kevin Feige may depart as an adviser on the Spidey films, since some are seeing this split as less-than-amicable. Historically, though, Feige has been one of the Marvel Studios representatives who chipped in feedback on movies where he wasn't officially credited or had little to no official role, simply because it is in his and Marvel's best interest to make sure those movies are as good as they can be.

For now, Spider-Man: Far From Home, the highest-grossing film in Sony's history, is still in theaters (which explains the dip in their stock price after everything blew up online), and will return with a new scene that expands the runtime by 4 minutes in time for a final Labor Day Weekend hurrah.

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