Sony CEO Warns: Spider-Man Spinoffs Set to Fail, No Matter the Quality

Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU) is a movie franchise focused on characters from Spider-Man comics. It started in 2013 when Sony planned spin-offs from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, including a Venom movie.

After The Amazing Spider-Man 2 didn’t do well, Sony teamed up with Marvel Studios to bring Spider-Man into the MCU but kept building a separate Venom universe.

The SSU includes the Venom series (ending with Venom: The Last Dance), Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter. Most of these movies got bad reviews, especially Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven.

Kraven the Hunter failed in every way, and reports suggest it might be the last movie in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU). The studio seems unwilling to keep investing in a franchise with poor ratings and frequent financial losses.

Sony CEO Tony Vinciquerra recently spoke to the Los Angeles Times about his time at Sony. He said the studio had mostly great results during his tenure, often beating budgets and rewarding employees with bonuses, even during tough times like strikes and COVID.

However, he admitted that Kraven the Hunter, his last film release as CEO, had the worst opening in his 7.5 years. He found this surprising because he didn’t think the movie was bad. Despite this, he described his time as CEO as successful overall.

We’ve had mostly very, very good results. Unfortunately, [“Kraven the Hunter”] that we launched last weekend, and my last film launch, is probably the worst launch we had in the 7 1/2 years so that didn’t work out very well, which I still don’t understand, because the film is not a bad film.

But we’ve been very successful. We’ve beat our budgets every year I’ve been here, even through strikes and COVID, and max bonuses several of the years for all the employees. It was a good run, and the film studio was a big part of it.

When asked if the Spider-Man universe strategy should be rethought, Vinciquerra agreed. He said the franchise seems “snake-bitten,” meaning it has had constant bad luck or problems. He also said any new movie would probably get harsh criticism, no matter how good or bad it is.

I do think we need to rethink it, just because it’s snake-bitten. If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is.

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This is partly true since every new SSU movie was criticized even before the trailer or promos came out, mostly because of the bad reputation from earlier films. What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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