Sony as a company is a hardware manufacturer at heart. Based in Japan they run Sony Pictures from California, but they are also focused on a large manufacturing base which produces telecommunications, video game, televisions, computing, etc. most of which is shrinking. A Private Equity Firm called Prime Capital Management recently purchased a large stake in Sony. They are attempting to pressure Sony to improve its performance and to sell off "non-core" assets. The laws in Japan are different than the United States, so they may not be successful. Lastly, Amy Pascal (The brain child for all of this) left Sony in May. Per Variety, Sony Pictures lost over $900 million dollars last year. The pressure is on to consider a change..... A hopeful thought..... Sony - a manufacturing company which owns a Movie / Media company as an asset, might think about selling some or all of the assets.
From a Disney perspective, Marvel already owns Spiderman.... It licenses an exclusive right to the Spiderverse to Sony, which is documented here in these discussions as a two way partnership. Changes to this license agreement will not have the same regulatory review, and can be done quickly. Purchasing the Movie Studio on the other hand, would be a time consuming and require a regulatory review, and quite frankly include the sale of a bunch of assets, which Disney doesn't want. Its a long shot, (a really long shot), but one might hope.... As the current deal with 3 films in the MCU and 3 standalone movies ends, Disney and Sony will have to go back to the table, Lets hope they decide to exchange assets, and/or modify the license agreement further..... Not very likely, but something to consider.
