Activision Confirms Long-Term Spider-Man Movie Tie-Up

Following Activision's recent announcement that it had signed a multi-year extension with Marvel to its current video game licensing agreements for the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises through 2017, the company has confirmed that this agreement also includes games based on the Spider-Man movies. Though this agreement was implied by the previous $50 million deal, Activision has now officially confirmed the agreement includes the movies, which is with Spider-Man Merchandising L.P., a limited partnership between Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc., a division of the film's producer, and Marvel Entertainment, Inc. Despite the fact that the agreement involves a division of Sony, it covers "interactive entertainment games" in general over all formats, the first game of which will be based on Columbia Pictures and Marvel's Spider-Man 3, set for release in May 2007. Previous Spider-Man movie-licensed games, developed by Neversoft and Treyarch for Activision, have been significantly successful, with Spider-Man 2 the #1 movie-based videogame in the U.S. in 2004, and Spider-Man a top-five selling title in the U.S. in 2002, according to NPD. However, this year's non-movie-licensed Ultimate Spider-Man seems to have been somewhat less commercially successful, making the movie tie-in particularly important to Activision. "This agreement allows Activision to continue bringing our own brand of interactive magic and vision to this unique, evergreen property and to build on the success we have already achieved with the Spider-Man movies," said Mike Griffith, President and CEO, Activision Publishing, Inc. "Games based on this phenomenally successful property bring the film's popular characters to life and allow consumers to extend their experience with original missions and additional Marvel characters beyond those of the Spider-Man movies."