The Spectacular Spider-Man star Josh Keaton has revealed his frustrations with how Disney handled the show during its initial run. Spider-Man is one of the most storied characters in all of fiction. He has countless comics, movies, TV shows, video games, and so on, he’s one of the biggest superheroes in the world and there seems to be no signs of any kind of Spider-Man fatigue. Fans have come to love and appreciate his world, always enjoying new stories with the webhead. However, the overabundance of Spider-Man has also meant that some iterations of the character get compromised in various ways.
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As Spider-Man fans likely know well, Marvel sold the film rights for Spider-Man to Sony many years ago to avoid bankruptcy. This was a good deal at the time and allowed Sony to go off and make Sam Raimi’s beloved Spider-Man trilogy. However, once the MCU kicked off, things got complicated. Spider-Man couldn’t appear alongside the Avengers unless Marvel and Sony worked out a deal. After a couple of misfires, Sony and Disney struck a deal that allowed Sony to keep Spider-Man, but he could be used in the MCU. Things got a bit more complicated for Spider-Man when it came to TV stuff, though.
On the Toon’d In podcast, The Spectacular Spider-Man star Josh Keaton revealed that the show more or less died because of Disney. The actor noted that the show was in full swing on the CW and they were making Season 2 when Disney bought Marvel. Although Disney seemed to be confident that The Spectacular Spider-Man would continue on Disney XD, that’s not how things went.
“I mean, we got cut short, because that was that was right around the time that Disney was going to buy Marvel,” said Keaton. “So we did a season, it was critically acclaimed, it was getting great ratings. And then we were doing Season 2, and while we were recording Season 2 was when Disney bought Marvel, and they basically never cancelled us and never picked us up. They just never said anything. But they told us, ‘Oh, you’re going to be headlining our new network, Disney XD.’ But then, when they put us on Disney XD, they showed the episodes out of order, they kept changing the times that it was going to air, they never really did any promotion.“
Keaton went on to note that it didn’t help that The Spectacular Spider-Man moved from the CW to Disney XD, which was a channel that wasn’t as widely accessible depending on the kind of provider people had. He went on to say that the chances of a return to The Spectacular Spider-Man were slim because Sony owns the rights to that specific show, despite the fact Disney owns the rights to Spider-Man in TV. Ultimately, Disney would have to pay Sony to do another season, which probably isn’t worthwhile to Disney and why they went on to make Ultimate Spider-Man with Drake Bell.
“The thing is that Disney now owns the rights to the character of Spider-Man for TV, right? But Sony still owns the rights to the show, ‘The Spectacular Spider-Man.’ So if Disney wanted to continue making it, they would have to basically pay Sony to license the show, so they could keep making it. But, why would they do that? They’re like, ‘We can just make our own show.’”
Despite the fact that The Spectacular Spider-Man was featured in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, it’s not any kind of big hint at the future. It seems like that version of the character won’t get the spotlight again, much to the dismay of fans.
Do you still want a season 3 of The Spectacular Spider-Man? Let me know in the comments.
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