Merry Christmas, nerds! It’s finally happening. After years of speculation, Marvel Studios and Sony have announced a partnership that will see Spider-Man swing into the MCU while staying in the hands of Sony.

I couldn’t resist making that pun.

According to Marvel’s press release, Spider-Man will first appear in a Marvel film before starring in another solo movie co-produced by Kevin Feige. Spidey’s solo movie will be released July 28, 2017. This entry shifts around a couple of previously announced release dates for Marvel’s Phase 3. Check out the updated list of releases here. For more information, check out the official press releases from Marvel.

My take

So I’m a little too excited. I have officially boarded the hype train and I have a one-way ticket. It’s great that we’ll finally get to see Spidey hanging around the MCU. In the midst of all this hype, however, there is going to be a lot of misinformation going around. In light of this, I’d like to make a few things clear. In particular, I’d like to point out what the press release does NOT say.

We don’t know who will be playing Spider-Man. For a long time, it seemed like Spidey’s entrance into the MCU would mean Andrew Garfield would have to hang up the costume. That still might be the case given the terminology used in Marvel’s press release, but we don’t know for sure. My guess is that we’ll know who’s playing Spider-Man by the time San Diego Comic-Con rolls around. While I’d be sad to see Andrew Garfield go, I’d much rather see a new Spider-Man in a good movie than Andrew Garfield in another bad one. And make no mistake; The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a bad one.

We don’t know which Marvel movie Spider-Man will appear in. It was previously assumed that if Spider-Man ever joined the MCU, the best time to introduce him would be in Captain America: Civil War. I even guessed that’s when we’d see him. But Marvel’s press release doesn’t explicitly say which movie he’ll be introduced in. Considering Civil War starts filming in a month or two, it’s safe to say Marvel would have had to plan around confirming Spider-Man some time ago. Could he still show up in Civil War? Of course. But it does seem to be cutting it a bit close, so I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if Spidey is introduced in a later movie.

Overall, this is still great news and there’s a lot to be excited about. It looks like Marvel fans have some good years ahead of them. What do you think about Spider-Man joining the MCU?