You might have heard the news of Spider-Man possibly being unceremoniously kicked out of any future Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films.

The disappointment among fans has been palpable.

so your trying to tell me that iron man passed his legacy onto spider-man to become the new leader only for sony to take him away from the mcu?? wow didn’t know sony was ran by fucking clowns 🤡 #SaveSpiderman pic.twitter.com/JIhfDxc312

— mia (@mia01998045) August 21, 2019

Live look at literally every Spider-Man fan right now pic.twitter.com/tNWCILYjDH

— BD (@BrandonDavisBD) August 20, 2019

And some were a tad bit dramatic.

https://twitter.com/PapaElChapo/status/1163975395571642370

So here's what you need to know about this kerfuffle.

What's the kerfuffle?

Basically, Deadline reported that negotiations between Marvel Studios and Sony broke down on August 20, 2019.

Which put forth the possibility of Tom Holland being unable to interact with fellow MCU characters such as Scarlet Witch, Winter Soldier, or Ant Man in future movie adaptations.

What led to the kerfuffle?

An origins movie of the kerfuffle would basically deal with Sony's really poor handling of the franchise.

Basically, Marvel wasn't doing so great financially in the 90's to early noughties. So they had to sell the movie licensing fees to beloved characters such as Spider-Man to other companies like Sony.

Which meant as long as they kept paying a licensing fee, and continued producing movies starring these characters, Marvel wouldn't get them back for a cinematic run.

Luckily for Marvel, they finally reached a deal with Sony in 2015 to share the character rights of Spider-Man.

Why the kerfuffle?

In a nutshell, money.

Marvel Studios allegedly wanted a 50 per cent cut on future Spider-Man movies, which sounds like an equal thing to want, but the terms were a legitimate step up from their previous agreement.

People seem to be mad at Sony for Spider-Man and the MCU separating? If you read the Deadline piece it sounds like Disney raised its price from 5 percent to 50 percent, which is a lot! It’s not insane Sony didn’t agree to that.

— Mike Ryan (@mikeryan) August 20, 2019

The initial agreement had given Marvel Studios the right to use Spider-Man in their movies, but they would only get five per cent of the first dollar box office gross from Spider-Man Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far from Home.

Five per cent is supposedly less than 50 per cent.

Sony was so against the deal, they apparently did not even offer a counter-deal.

Why the kerfuffle, now?

As mentioned above, the contract was only up till the second standalone MCU Spider-Man film. The takings for the two films have also been immensely rewarding.

Spider-Man: Homecoming grossed a mind boggling US$880 million (S$1.2 billion) at the box office, with its successor building on that to gross an even absurdly higher US$1.1 billion (S$1.52 billion).

Far From Home, incidentally, is the highest grossing Sony film ever.

Which makes the future of the friendly neighbourhood web slinger quite a hot topic for the two studios.

Can the kerfuffle be resolved?

Yes, of course. Entertainment Weekly reported that negotiations were still ongoing between the two studios but other publications were less optimistic about the outcome.

Both studios have so far refused to comment.

What if the kerfuffle isn't resolved?

A swarm of locusts terrorising livestock and agriculture.

Or something less extreme. Worst case scenario is that Tom Holland's Spider-Man doesn't get to interact Avengers-style with the other MCU characters.

Sony is actually developing a cinematic universe of their own with their own Sony Marvel Universe (ikr). You may remember the first movie in that effort, Venom, played by Tom Hardy.

So perhaps Holland could fit into another cosier, like real cosier they only have one movie out right now, universe.

So this is a real possibility.

I CANT HANDLE ANOTHER SPIDER-MAN REBOOT THEY KEEP MAKING ME GET ATTACHED TO EVER VERSION OF PETER PARKER THEN RIPPING HIM AWAY FROM ME pic.twitter.com/PPolLSgd35

— ally ♡ ˚ ༘·˚ (@iceclcoffee) August 20, 2019

Image from Brandon Davis Twitter