marvel had no choice in the matter, they were bankrupt and had to sell off assets. At the time, they were making some really shitty movies like the original Fantastic Four movie or the Nick Fury movie with david hasselhoff, so they auctioned off the movie rights to many of their characters like spider-man, iron man, hulk, and the x-men. marvel still owned all the toy rights and all the comic books rights and all the television rights, they only sold off the movie rights.

fast forward 30 years and now disney owns them and they’ve bought back nearly all of the movie rights, I’m pretty sure sony is the only third party that still owns movie rights to marvel characters.

Honestly, I’m sure there’s going to a resolution to this sooner than later, especially with the rumor that Lord & Miller are going to be doing a spider-man television show.