Look out, Spidey fans! A large crop of Sony’s web-slinger movies are coming to Disney Plus in the UK and Ireland this week.
The streaming service has confirmed that Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014) and Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) will be made available to subscribers on Friday, June 17.
While we’re not surprised to see Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) omitted from that number (more on this below), it is odd that neither Spider-Man 3 (2007) nor Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019) count among the impending arrivals. However, Disney's UK division has assured TechRadar that “additional Spider-Man movies will be coming [to Disney Plus] soon.”
Four of the Spidey movies heading to Disney Plus on June 17 – Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Homecoming – are currently available to stream on Netflix, while The Amazing Spider-Man 2 remains on Prime Video. It’s not yet clear whether their addition to Disney’s streamer will mean their removal from other platforms, but the June and July departure lists for both Netflix and Prime Video suggest not (though we're intrigued to see whether Netflix and Amazon Studios update their lists accordingly in the coming days).
The wall-crawler's films will represent the first feature-length Spider-Man adventures to hit Disney Plus since its launch in March 2020. At present, Spidey's presence on the platform has been limited to animated series and Disney-produced Marvel movies like Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018).
Disney Plus has also said that “additional titles from Sony Pictures’ film and television library are expected to premiere on Disney Plus in UK and Ireland later this year.” There’s a good chance, then, that Venom (2018) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) – as well as, we hope, Spider-Man 3 and Far from Home – will hit the streamer in the coming months.
Incidentally, various combinations of Sony-produced superhero movies are due to land on other versions of Disney Plus on June 17. Venom, for instance, is coming to Disney Plus Japan, while Into the Spider-Verse (along with Spider-Man 3 and others) is heading to the Indonesian and Italian versions of the platform.
Analysis: So, where is Spider-Man: No Way Home?
We hear you. Ever since the record-breaking Phase 4 Marvel movie’s release in December last year, superhero fans the world over have been clamouring for its arrival on streaming services. But there’s a good reason why Spider-Man: No Way Home isn’t yet available on Disney Plus.
Essentially, Sony currently holds the rights to Marvel’s feature-length Spider-Man properties. There’s no obligation for the studio to offer up its latest film to Disney's platform, where the majority of other Marvel movies currently call home.
We do know, however, that US cable network (and Lionsgate subsidiary) Starz owns the exclusive rights to distribute No Way Home for up to 18 months after its December 2021 release. The movie will be coming to the Starz app some time in the next few months (company CEO Jeffrey Hirsch confirmed as much to Deadline in February 2022).
Starz also exists as a paid add-on service to existing Prime Video subscriptions, so technically, No Way Home should likewise become available to stream through Amazon’s entertainment platform when the movie goes live on Starz.
With that 18-month Starz exclusivity deal running until July 2023, we wouldn’t ordinarily expect to see No Way Home arrive (at Marvel’s request) on Disney Plus for at least another year. At that point, though, Netflix – which currently owns the distribution rights to Spider-Man films in the UK, Australia, India and other regions – will own the worldwide rights to all Sony movies (per the terms of an existing deal), meaning a Disney Plus arrival for No Way Home may not be on the cards at all.
So, if you do want to stream the final movie in Tom Holland’s wall-crawler trilogy as part of an existing subscription package, you’ll have to do so on Netflix – we just don't know when that’ll be just yet. No Way Home is, however, available to rent on-demand through various other platforms right now, and you can find details on how to do so here.
For more Spider-Man content, check out our No Way Home ending explainer. Alternatively, find out about the menacing villain set to make his cinematic debut in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse next June.
