A suit by Daily Variety and the Los Angeles Daily Journal has resulted in a decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Alexander Williams to open documents in Marvel's suit against Sony (which he called 'the mother of all contract suits') to the public, according to Variety.  Sony had opposed making the documents public, arguing that they contain detailed revenue projections and licensing rates for Spider-Man 1, the release of which could make it difficult to make licensing deals on the sequel. 

 

According to the Variety report, the suit was filed by Marvel, but the dispute actually began when Sony came to believe that Marvel was using inappropriate accounting to keep Sony from sharing in revenues from Marvel's Spider-Man products.  After Sony withheld $1.5 million in payments to Marvel and indicated that it would begin an audit of Marvel's books, Marvel sued to terminate its Spider-Man licensing agreement with Sony after the second movie and filed claims against Sony for cross-promoting Spider-Man with other Sony features. 

 

Lots of money's at stake -- the first Spider-Man movie has already grossed over $815 million at the box office, and sold over 10 million DVDs (see 'Spider-Man Driving Sony's Worldwide Box Office').