Disneyland to open new Spider-Man ride despite Sony/Marvel split
Fans will be able to spin webs alongside Peter Parker when a new Marvel area opens in the park in 2021
While Spider-Man might be leaving the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that doesn’t mean his Disney days are over entirely, with the webbed wonder set to be the star of a new ride in Disneyland Paris despite recent disagreements between Disney and rival movie studio Sony over use of the character.
In the upcoming attraction, guests will interact with Peter Parker as he encourages them to sling webs and collect rogue Spider-bots (as you can see in the concept art, below), with the unnamed ride forming part of the upcoming Marvel-themed area of the park called Avengers Campus.
And of course, the news of Spider-Man’s big Disneyland opening could come as a surprise for many fans, with the shock news that Spider-Man will be leaving the House of Mouse’s Marvel stable dominating headlines for the past few weeks.
However, there is a simple explanation. While Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man, and only shared the character with Disney/Marvel for the last few years until negotiations for a new deal recently broke down, Disney do still have the merchandising and comic-book rights for Spider-Man in general.
Accordingly, it appears that this Spider-Man won’t specifically be the canonical, MCU/Tom Holland version of the character – rather, it’ll be a generic version of Spider-Man that Disney are allowed to use in this particular context, even if they’re not allowed to use him in movies.
And even if Spidey never returns to the MCU, it looks like he’ll be sticking around at Disneyland.
Speaking to RadioTimes.com, Vice president of Walt Disney Imagineering David Wilson said that Spider-Man is here to stay in the parks as "one of the most popular Marvel characters".
In other words, no matter what happens in the grand Marvel/Sony stand-off, a Disney version of Spider-Man will still exist at some point in the future. Clearly you can’t keep a good mouse down.
Additional reporting by Jo-Anne Rowney
The Avengers Campus area will open in Disneyland Paris in 2021
