Earlier this week, it was reported that Kraven the Hunter would mark the end of "Sony's Spider-Man Universe." Variety has now chimed in, somewhat disputing that claim.
According to the trade, there technically never was any sort of shared "universe" for these characters. Both Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter were billed as "standalone" stories but only after Morbius - clearly set in the same world as Venom - bombed.
Acknowledging that Sony now intends to focus on its Spider-Man projects, it's apparent these spin-off movies are being put on ice.
"The looming box office failure [of Kraven the Hunter] almost certainly signifies the end of this endeavour at the studio," the report explains, "which one knowledgeable insider at Sony imputed to an industry-wide 'irrational exuberance about superheroes' that has ultimately led to the overall diminishment of the genre’s primacy as the leading force at the box office."
While those same insiders "fiercely" defend the success of the Venom trilogy, each new instalment has still made less than the previous effort. However, with The Last Dance earning more overseas than Let There Be Carnage, we may not have seen the last of the Lethal Protector.
It's later explained that the success of 2018's Venom "presented Sony with the false impression that audiences would flock to see a movie about any Spider-Man character without Spider-Man in the film."
According to one Sony source, Disney's deal with Sony never stopped the latter studio from including Spider-Man in these spin-off projects.
The trade notes, "But there was a feeling within the studio that audiences would not accept Holland’s Spidey suddenly popping up in a live-action film that wasn’t a part of the MCU, especially after 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' and the Marvel Studios projects 'Loki' and 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' established definitive boundaries to the Marvel multiverse."
That forced Sony into heavily reshooting Morbius to explain how Michael Keaton could show up in another universe (based on this report, it appears the studio believed fans would happily assume the Living Vampire's movie and Venom just took place elsewhere on Earth-616).
Sony is aware that these movies aren't working and is likely to be more "discerning" about its future endeavours. As one veteran producer puts it, "You can feel the cynicism a mile away. They’re grinding out product, and it feels like it. There’s no quality control."
For what it's worth, The Cosmic Circus' Alex Perez has also just shared the following: