Sony has been a big brand for longer than most people have been alive. Founded in 1946, Sony has always been a corporation specializing in technology, starting with radio repairs. Within the last thirty years or so, they have been dipping their toes into movie-making. They have produced a good number of popular and beloved films, such as Ghostbusters, Ace Ventura, and Spider-Man just to name a few. However, within that last one lies some problems. At this point, another big movie corporation we are all familiar with is Marvel Studios, and their multi-billion dollar franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Being such a popular and fan-favorite franchise, Spider-Man appearing in these movies is a no-brainer, right? Well, it is not that simple.
Back in the early 2000s, Marvel was in a bit of a financial crisis, and in an effort to rake some cash back in, they sold off some of their characters to other companies, such as The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and yes, Spider-Man, in hopes movies based on them will succeed. Due to this deal, Sony had the rights to Spider-Man, and all of his associated characters, so Marvel themselves were unable to include the character in their films. This resulted in Sony trying to make their cinematic universe, but after their second film in said universe, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, received major backlash from critics for being a mess of a movie, sitting at 51% currently on Rottentomatoes.com, they made a deal with Marvel to let them use Spider-Man in the MCU. However, Sony had some other plans.
As you might remember, they still owned all of Spider-Man’s associated characters, so what better move than to start a cinematic universe based on THOSE characters? So, Sony set out to begin their cinematic universe to rival the MCU, starting with Venom in 2018. Now, at first glance, a Venom movie does not seem so absurd to a comic book fan. Many people in the general audience may wonder how a Venom movie could work, since he is Spider-Man’s villain, but many comic book fans will know Venom has been a good guy for the last twenty or so years, so a film based on these adventures could work. However, some things started to fall apart when they announced the film would be an origin for Venom. This immediately turned some heads, since Venom’s origin is so intertwined with Spider-Man. With the announcement Venom would be lacking the iconic white spider logo on his chest, many people started to wonder if this film would really live up to Sony’s hype. The film finally released on October 5, 2018, and ended its run with an impressive $850 million, even more impressive given the film’s $100 million budget. Despite this, critics still lambasted the movie, giving it a low 30% on rottentomatoes.com, however, it seems the fans seemed to quite enjoy the film, with it getting an 80% audience score on the same website.
With the success of this film, it would seem Sony’s universe may not be as bad as some thought, but these thoughts were quickly shot down, as Sony then announced several solo films based on Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. Starting with Morbius in 2022, this film seemed to be the biggest head-scratcher of a film anyone had seen. Morbius was NOT a popular character, even among comic book fans, so the thought of him getting a film did not make a whole lot of sense, and when a trailer for the film dropped, including a scene with a painting on the wall of Spider-Man, wearing a suit from a different movie franchise, and also a screenshot from the 2018 Spider-Man video game made by Insomniac Studio’s, many were confused what this movie was trying to do. When the film finally released after several delays in April 2022, it bombed HARD. In its opening weekend, it made $89 million, which is better than Venom’s opening, but it seemed many people only went to see the film for the joke, as after that it struggled to make any money, as it ended its run with only $160 million. However, in possibly the funniest movie ever pulled on a studio, people on X.com (formerly Twitter.com at the time of this event) started saying the movie was the greatest thing they had ever seen, talking about how much they loved the movie. Seeing this, Sony must have believed they really had created the superhero equivalent of The Godfather, they put it BACK IN THEATERS for a limited time, which proved to be a bad idea, seeing as people do not actually like the movie, which led to Sony losing an additional $300,000 according to Wikipedia.com
And, that leads us to now. As of writing this, February 26, 2024, just twelve days ago, Valentine’s Day, Sony released another one of these films, Madame Web, a film focusing on an incredibly obscure Marvel character. On its opening weekend, the film made a pitiful $39 million and has been flamed heavily by fans and critics alike, for strange camerawork, poor plot decisions, and all-around very strange and stilted movie experience. Despite all of this though, Sony does not seem to know when to quit, as already we are to expect a Venom 3 and a film based on yet another Spidey villain, Kraven the Hunter. To me, the best way to prevent more of these from being made is to just not see them, so they continue to lose even less money, and let Sony know nobody is interested in these films. But at this point, it seems as though they are locked in, whether that is for the better or worse, is up to you.
