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Sony’s Spider-Man Universe Was Doomed To Fail

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26 seconds ago

December 19, 2024

It sounds like Sony is caught in its own complicated spider’s web, and as Kraven the Hunter debuts to a commercial and critical panning, there are reports that Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (sometimes called the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Pictures) is officially dead. From the promising start of Venom through to J. C. Chandor’s Kraven the Hunter, where did the SSU go wrong?

Kraven the Hunter was hyped as a big deal because it served as the SSU’s first R-rated movie, but while the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Deadpool & Wolverine broke records to become the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, Chandor’s comic book caper opened to a box office as low as $11 million. Although the SSU has three Venom movies, Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven under its belt, it looks like Sony is pressing pause on all future projects.

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The SSU has Always Struggled

After Topher Grace famously played Venom in Sam Raimi’s overstuffed Spider-Man 3, there was plenty of hype when Tom Hardy was announced as Eddie Brock/Venom for a darker take on the brain-munching villain. Hardy was tipped to lead an antihero-led SSU, and with the MCU still hesitant to go down the R-rated route, there were high hopes that the SSU could deliver the blood-soaked Marvel movies many were calling for. Instead, only Kraven the Hunter had the elusive rating.

R-rated disappointments aside, there was confusion about where the SSU sits in terms of canon. Alongside the maligned SPUMC designation, Sony’s Amy Pascal and MCU overlord Kevin Feige couldn’t seem to agree on whether the SSU could be considered part of the MCU. Amid arguments over the Spider-Man rights, there was a time in 2019 when it looked like the Spider-Man movies would have to cut their ties to the MCU and annex Tom Holland’s Web-Head from Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers. Still, with a bulging bible of Spider-Man villains and an expanding slate of ‘Venomverse’ movies, the potential was there.

Instead, the movies of the SSU were largely overshadowed by the idea that Holland would eventually appear (he didn’t). Even before Ruben Fleischer’s Venom released in 2018, there was buzz about a potential Holland cameo. There are unsubstantiated reports that Holland filmed a cameo for the movie but it was eventually cut at the request of Marvel Studios. Still, as each new Venom movie came out, fans had their crossover hopes dashed. As recently as 2024, word of Venom: The Last Dance reshoots had audiences naively hoping for a cameo from Peter Parker.

There were hints of troubles behind the scenes, with Sony forced to use an “in association with Marvel” logo on its SSU movies. It was very much a feeling that the studio was being kept away from the MCU, most notably by Venom: The Last Dance feeling like it was missing a Spider-Man cameo. If Spider-Man can’t be brought in for the last entry in a trilogy, then he was never likely to appear. More frustratingly, there was a chance to include any number of Spider-Man. Various Easter eggs in Morbius suggested it was set in the same world as Andrew Garfield’s The Amazing Spider-Man movies, which could capitalize on his popularity and the tragic fallout of The Amazing Spider-Man 3 being canceled.

Instead, the SSU limped forward with increasingly lackluster outings that failed to set the box office alight. It’s true that Venom made a worldwide gross of $856 million against a budget of around $116 million, but with Madame Web making $100.5 million against a reported production budget of $80 million the profit margins were getting tighter. Even Venom: The Last Dance’s respectable $472.9 million is a far cry from the highs of the original. More than this, not a single entry in the SSU has ever scored above a ‘rotten’ score on Rotten Tomatoes. With Kraven scraping through numerous delays and accusations its been chopped and changed, it’s tipped to be the end of the SSU.

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Is Kraven the Hunter the end of the SSU?

At the time of writing, the SSU is reportedly dead in the water. The Wrap has reported that the SSU has come to an underwhelming end with Kraven the Hunter, which is further compounded by the fact the movie had no post-credit scenes or real ties to the wider universe. One Sony insider reportedly told the site:

“The biggest issue with the Sony Spider-Man spinoffs seems to be the lack of quality control. The movies just aren’t good. Sometimes that lack of quality meets a movie no one asked for, which was the case with ‘Madame Web,’ and that is a no-win scenario. It may be time for Sony to start cultivating different IP to launch new franchises.”

The idea now is that Sony will refocus its efforts into Daniel Destin Cretton’s Spider-Man 4, the delayed Beyond the Spider-Verse, and Nicolas Cage’s live-action Spider-Man Noir.

There hadn’t been much movement on the Donald Glover-led Hypno-Hustler movie, El Muerto after Bad Bunny dropped out, nor the indefinitely shelved standalone movie(s) for Black Cat and Silver Sable. It also means the long-predicted Sinister Six movie likely won’t be happening. It leaves a number of frustrating plot threads like Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes/Vulture from Spider-Man: Homecoming trapped in the same universe as Jared Leto’s Michael Morbius. For all its faults, Morbius at least brought fans the closest to a shared universe.

Unlike the MCU slowly building out with its Phase One movies before culminating in The Avengers, the SSU threw a kitchen sink of characters and announced projects out there without doing much to tie them together. Despite promises of a shared universe, most felt like standalone outings. Although it’s possible these characters could be folded into Spider-Man 4 with some more Multiversal madness, the studio likely doesn’t want to tarnish the reputation of Tom Holland’s wall-crawling hero. This is further emphasized by the fact Hardy’s Venom ended up in the Earth-616 canon of the mainline MCU during Spider-Man: No Way Home but the story was quickly retconned at the start of The Last Dance.

Hardy himself has said he’d ‘love’ to fight Holland in the MCU, while Venom could still be saved as a key part of the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars. For now, the SSU is accused of wasting money and wasting the audience’s time. As the likes of Universal’s Dark Universe and Warner Bros.’ DCEU can attest, not every expanded universe can work like the MCU did. Even the MCU-adjacent SSU struggled to find much meaning, although there are sure to be questions about whether having Holland, Garfield, Tobey Maguire, or a whole new Spider-Man could’ve helped it. At the end of the day, it will always seem off that something would be called the Sony Spider-Man Universe without the man himself.