Warning: This section contains spoilers for Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven the Hunter.
In news not to upset anyone in particular, Kraven the Hunter Now in theaters. The latest and probably last live-action spin-off flick for Sony’s ill-fated cinematic universe Disgraceful opening weekend including offensive reviews (including IGN), marks an ignominious end to one of the worst years for the superhero genre While no major superhero franchise is at its best right now, the MCU Infinity Saga and Warner Bros. James Gunn is betting big on getting DC’s upcoming Superman reboot back on track, none as consistently as weak as Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU). or it is Sony Universe of Marvel Characters (SUMC)?
Whatever this franchise should have been called, it’s definitely over. wrapped up It was recently reported that Sony Pictures is looking to shut down this flailing enterprise after Kraven the Hunter so they can put all their focus on the upcoming Spider-Man 4 and Beyond the Spider-Verse. Good for them for cutting their losses and not subjecting us to any more of this nonsense, but the real question is: How could anyone have thought this was going to turn out differently? None of these movies were particularly good (sorry, Venom fans) and the characters they all starred in were defined by their relationship with Spider-Man, a character they weren’t allowed to meet. This series is always going to fail, even if one manages to wrangle a worthwhile movie out of the situation. Let’s take a look at why Sony’s Marvel Universe was doomed before it even began.
Spider-Man: Civil War
Sony Universe has always been a strange beast because of the strange rights situation that exists within it. Sony Pictures holds the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise, but after the critical and financial disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in 2014, Sony decided to share Spider-Man with Marvel Studios and allow Peter Parker to swing into the MCU, where he As played by Tom Holland. But Sony had already started developing multiple spin-off projects during the TASM days, like the Venom and Sinister Six films. Sony obviously wanted to exploit the Marvel characters they had access to, but the centerpiece of the franchise, Spider-Man, is now technically their rival in webbing.
The standalone Spider-Man films that followed hinted at the passive-aggressive deal Disney and Sony made. Homecoming and Far From Home were drowning in references to the larger MCU, ensuring that it would be difficult for Sony to “exit” the arrangement without upsetting fans and shareholders who would question why there wasn’t a more popular version of Holland’s character by now. Long in the same world as his Avengers friends, while No Way Home used brute force to get versions of characters from Sony’s non-MCU franchises to “legitimize” with the power of the multiverse. But none of that changed the fact that Sony’s connection to the larger Marvel brand was remarkably one-sided, something that even casual audiences were able to grasp.
The “affiliated with Marvel” logo that Sony was forced to use and the clear indication that they were not allowed to feature Spider-Man in their spin-off films created a pervasive sense that Sony’s films were a b-side to the MCU. . No matter how many times Tom Hardy or others have teased Venom meeting Spider-Man, the entire Venom trilogy came The two characters never cross paths without. Same with Morbius, Madame Web and now Kraven, he’s the closest thing to a Peter Parker appearance outside of the post-credits scene in Let There Be Carnage. the birth Madame Webb. It’s ironic that a cinematic universe full of Spider-Man characters doesn’t actually have Spider-Man in it, but this fact has ruined the series in more ways than one.
The Unsinister Six
We say this out of nothing but love for superhero fiction, but it tends to be fairly common. With exceptions like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns or X-Men: God Loves, Man Kills, most superhero stories follow a fairly standard formula and find their own take on the details, not the blueprint. Therefore, superhero films, especially those depicting origin stories, follow a similar mold in which the hero goes through a formative arc that leads to coming to terms with their powers and accepting their role as superheroes. However, aside from Madame Web, Sony has exclusively used supervillains as main characters in their films, which means that they almost necessarily have to make these comic book antagonists into heroic figures, especially since their real enemies, Spider-Man, are both good. People and not around.
Venom began his comic book career as a villain who wanted nothing more than to cave in Spider-Man’s skull, and though he later took on the role of lethal guardian and became more of an antihero, his choice to move away from his villainous past only served him well. Meaning within the context of actually having one. Kraven and Morbius also started out as enemies of Spider-Man, and although the latter has a “tragic monster” angle going on, he’s always had a dark side even when he’s worked for good. But these movies flatten any potential nuance by having their leads be ambiguous hero figures, which only begs the question of why they’d even hypothetically be interested in fighting Spider-Man.
It’s certainly possible that with a strong eye and respect for the source material, the filmmakers could have figured out a way to properly turn the villainous characters into major movie leads, but Sony apparently had no interest in allowing that. All of these movies are corporate hackjobs concocted by executives and accountants desperate to compete in the superhero big leagues, regardless of the talent of anyone involved. Yet anyone who had any love for these characters would admit that completely contrasting them with their comic book counterparts was doing them a disservice, but that’s exactly what Sony did at every turn. It’s beyond disappointing to see the love and care for the superhero genre and comic book medium in their animated Spider-Verse features so absent in their live-action entries. But perhaps that was inevitable when Sony’s desire to continually expand its superhero universe was hampered by the logistics of owning just one superhero franchise.
A one-track universe
Here’s the thing about trying to create a cinematic universe: you actually need multiple franchises to do it. An under-discussed reason why the MCU clicked the way it did is that Marvel Studios had access to several different franchises that could have existed independently of each other if needed, and only profited. extra Value if placed in the same world. The problem with Sony was that they only had one franchise, Spider-Man. Even without Peter Parker in them, Venom, Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven are all still Spider-Man movies because they’re connected to his world by default. You can’t have one without the other, which means that trying to force issues and make movies about these characters without Spider-Man is just going to result in a series that ends up killing itself.
Venom movies feature a small cast and symbiote or symbiote-adjacent antagonists. Madam Web is a prequel to a group of characters who would eventually become Spider-Woman, but not in the movie. Kraven has to fight (and kill!) Rhino, depriving Spider-Man of another hypothetical adversary down the line. All of these films feel empty because none of these characters are designed to be major. They’re supporting characters who are part of a larger world centered around a figure who can actually carry that burden. Trying to create a universe outside of the appetizers without going to the main course will leave the audience starving.
The lesson that Sony Pictures never learned is that carving up the pieces of your franchise and then trying to tape them together won’t actually make your franchise great. But they couldn’t help but try to get into that blockbuster pie, even if it meant bringing up hysterical ideas like Morbius twisting the Vulture in the post-credits scene of the MCU, or teasing Knull as a major threat. Right next line to kill Venom, which probably means he’ll be stuck fighting a ramshackle group of second stringers. Hell, there were even ideas that didn’t happen, like teaming up Black Cat and Silver Sable, two characters who have nothing to do with each other other than being women in Spider-Man’s world or making a Sinister Six movie in a universe where Spider-Man could possibly appear. Not when that group exists for one reason only Spider-Man BattleExactly cheese-brained absurdity that we as a society should never have entertained. Sure, Sony’s Marvel Universe may have failed, but the real confusion is that it was even allowed to try.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and mass impact essays. You can follow his fixations Bluesky.
