Кадри з фільмів «Мадам Веб» і «Веном: Останній танець» / Sony
“Kraven the Hunter” will wrap up Sony’s work on films about characters from the “Spider-Man” universe, which were supposed to create a separate franchise from Marvel for the studio.
As The Wrap notes, the reason lies in the box office failures of previous projects — specifically “Morbius,” “Madame Web,” and the “Venom” trilogy. Just “Madame Web,” for example, cost $80-100 million excluding marketing and only collected $100 million worldwide.
The latest film “Kraven the Hunter” already cost a whopping $130 million for the universe — and unless a Christmas miracle happens, it’s likely to be one of Sony’s biggest flops ever.
“It seems that the biggest problem with Sony’s additional Spider-Man universe products is a lack of quality control. The movies are just bad,” the publication quotes an insider from the studio. “Sometimes it shows in movies that nobody asked for, like with ‘Madame Web.’ Maybe it’s time for Sony to cultivate other intellectual properties to launch new franchises.”
Soon, Sony will focus on collaboration with Marvel Studios (the next Spider-Man film with Tom Holland) and particularly the Spider-Verse.
The animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” was a box office hit in 2018 and won an Oscar, while the 2023 sequel “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” doubled the profits of the first movie with almost $700 million. Meanwhile, the second film, rumored to have a somewhat chaotic production, disrupted the timeline of the third movie — but Sony is still set on finishing the series with “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse” and is considering transitioning main character Miles Morales to live-action cinema.
The box office results of “Kraven the Hunter” might make Sony reconsider its plans, but, judging by the previous show at Brazil’s Comic Con Experience — unlikely. According to The Wrap, the film was shown “amid rows of empty seats.”