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“Sony’s Universe of Spider-Man Characters,” which was the original name the studio gave to its attempt at creating its own mini-MCU, was clear to everyone from the start that it was a bad idea. Everyone except Sony, that is.
Despite the inherent and unavoidable challenge of creating Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man in them (although, according to reports, they totally could have cast a separate Spider-Man to feature in the films played by someone other than Tom Holland), Sony plowed forward anyway.
The first Venom was a surprise success — grossing over $856 million against a $100 million budget — which deluded Sony into thinking the concept was legitimate, resulting in Morbius, Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter, and two additional Venom films.
None of the films have been well-received critically, and while the Venom movies were all profitable, the recently-released third and final was the lowest-grossing in the franchise, while the bottom fell out on both Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter.
The CEO of Sony doesn’t seem to understand why Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter failed, certainly not surprising considering he was behind all of these ideas.
“Madame Web underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it. It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided that they didn’t want us making these films out of Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web, and the critics just destroyed them,” Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra told the Los Angeles Times during a recent interview.
“They also did it with Venom, but the audience loved Venom and made Venom a massive hit. These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason.”
Vinciquerra also stuck to his guns in regards to Kraven the Hunter — which has grossed just $44 million against a reported ~$125 million budget — insisting that it’s “not a bad film.”
“My last film launch [Kraven the Hunter], 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.”
Following the bombing of Kraven the Hunter at the box office, reports indicate that Sony is no longer developing projects in the franchise. Finally.