Sony Pictures has had a tough time trying to create its own Marvel universe separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the Venom movies made money, each one did worse than the last, and critics mostly didn’t like them. Other films like Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter didn’t perform well at the box office, leading to big losses for the studio. Because of these failures, Sony decided to scrap its plans for a villain-focused Marvel universe.
Now, it seems Sony is changing its strategy. The studio plans to work on projects featuring different versions of Spider-Man. This shift comes after Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse did well, and they have future plans for Spider-Man 4 (in collaboration with Marvel Studios) and a Spider-Noir project for Amazon. They aim to use popular Spider-Man characters like Spider-Punk, Kaine, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Gwen, and Spider-Woman to create new films.
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By focusing on these characters, Sony can still benefit from the Spider-Man brand while keeping the main Peter Parker character within the MCU. The success of this new plan will depend on how well the films are made and whether they tell engaging stories, especially since past failures show that strong creative direction is vital.
Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra pointed out that the bad performance of some films was mainly due to negative reviews, rather than fundamental flaws in the movies themselves. He said, “probably the worst launch we had in the 7 1/2 years [I’ve been at Sony]. That didn’t work out very well, which I still don’t understand, because the film is not a bad film… Let’s just touch on Madame Web for a moment. Madame Web underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it. It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix.”
Despite the criticism, he mentioned that Venom has been a hit with audiences. The outcome of this new approach is still uncertain, but it shows that Sony is trying to bounce back from previous troubles and reshape its Spider-Man franchise strategy. The future of these projects will depend on how well audiences receive them and whether the studio can create captivating stories with various Spider-Man characters. Additionally, there are rumors about Miles Morales possibly moving to Marvel Studios, raising more questions about Sony’s plans in this area.
Source: @MyTimeToShineH, CBM
