Fans gather together with the demand to bring back ‘Spider Man’

5500 Spider-Man fans have set up a Facebook event to ‘storm’ Sony’s California offices and bring the web-slinger back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The event was set up on Tuesday by three people and exhorted fans to dress up in Spider-Man costumes and target the offices on Halloween, October 31, to bring “our boy home.” Earlier, a similar event was planned to target Area 51.

Marvel’s superhero films could lose their most famous character after Sony confirmed Tuesday that talks over its deal to share Spider-Man with the Disney-owned studio have broken down. The Marvel movies have together grossed $22 billion at the global box office, and British actor Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has become an increasingly central figure in the most lucrative franchise in film history.

But while the teen web-slinger has for decades been the crown jewel of the Marvel comic book empire on which the films are based, Sony owns the character’s movie rights. He only began appearing in Disney-owned Marvel Cinematic Universe after the Hollywood giants stuck an almost-unprecedented, and still highly secretive, 2015 deal to co-produce and split profits across the films.

A key aspect of that partnership has now broken down.

“We hope this might change in the future, but understand that the many new responsibilities that Disney has given him… do not allow time for him to work on IP (intellectual property) they do not own,” the Sony spokesman said in a statement.

The separation makes it “almost certain” that the character will be absent from crossover appearances in future Marvel films, according to Hollywood Reporter journalist Graeme McMillan.

Here’s what happened

Multiple Hollywood media outlets reported earlier Tuesday that Disney and Sony had failed to agree on financial terms for future Spider-Man films. According to Deadline, which broke the news, Disney had wanted to significantly increase its financial stake in new Spider-Man movies, while Sony refused to alter existing terms.

Sony last year produced an Oscar-winning Spider-Man animation separate from Marvel Studios’ domain, as well as a standalone film centered on popular Spider-Man villain Venom.

Sony and Marvel made a deal in 2015 to make Spider-Man movies together. The latest, Spider-Man: Far From Home, earned more than $1 billion at the box office, becoming Sony’s highest ever grossing film.