No, this isn’t one of Mysterio’s reality-bending illusions; Spider-Man may be getting booted out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and fans are not happy.

If you are unfamiliar with this controversy, here’s a summary of the Spider-Man/Marvel Studios situation. The rights to produce movies starring Spider-Man and all related characters (Venom, Miles Morales, Mysterio, etc.) have belonged to Sony Pictures since 1998, when Marvel Comics sold them as a way to escape near-bankruptcy. With these rights, Sony created Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy and Mark Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man films; neither of which had any connection to the then emerging Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However, that all changed in 2015, after the critical and box-office flop that was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, when Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures struck a ground-breaking deal: Marvel Studios would be allowed to use Spider-Man and a select few characters in three team-up films (Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, & Avengers: Endgame) and two solo films (Homecoming & Far From Home). After the five films were completed, they would renegotiate the deal to (as we hoped) extend Spidey’s stay in the MCU.

As you can already guess, the renegotiations ended with Peter Parker saying goodbye to The Avengers.

When news first broke of the Sony/Marvel fallout, fans were enraged. I’m not going to lie, I was too. The first thing I, and many others, thought was “How could Sony do this Spider-Man to one of the best versions of the character?”

Twitter, Instagram, and other social media sites were full of tweets begging Sony to “#BringBackSpidey” and to give Spider-Man back to Disney & Marvel Studios. But, upon further research it’s clear that Sony has taken way too much blame here, and Disney is getting away scot-free.

The truth is that renegotiations fell apart due to Disney asking for a larger stake in the Spider-Man solo films, upping their profits on the box-office from 5% to 50%. At first glance, this seems fair. Disney has made Spider-Man more popular than ever by adding him to the Avengers, so they should make more money from the Spider-Man movies. But, Disney would be making 50% on the solo Spider-Man movies, ALONG WITH 100% of profits from team-up movies AND 100% of merchandise profits.

Just to remind us, the last two Avengers movies, both featuring Spider-Man, made around $5 BILLION, none of which Sony got despite their character playing a huge role in the films. So, is Sony being selfish and wanting Spider-Man to themselves, or is it just another example of corporate greed from the Walt Disney Company?

Despite reports and rumors stating that negotiations are still ongoing, it saddens me to say that for now Spider-Man is out of the MCU. But, at the same time this does open the door to new possibilities.

Tom Holland is still signed on for two more Spider-Man movies, so we don’t have to worry about a fourth iteration of Peter Parker (yet). Also, now Holland’s Peter Parker can cross over into the Venom sequel Sony is creating; finally giving the iconic Spider-Man villain a chance to battle Spider-Man himself.

Finally, what I’m most excited for is the chance for a live-action Spider-Verse movie starring Holland; and even potentially getting the past two spider-men Andrew Garfield and Tobey Macguire back to reprise their roles all together. All in all, Spider-Man changed the MCU for the better with his introduction.  Now, it’s time to see how it will do without everyone’s favorite web-slinger.