Spider-Man has, for the most part, been an infallible IP for Sony. The Spider-Man films have been consistently successful—both critically and financially—making the Wall-Crawler one of Sony's most important brands. Given the character's popularity, Sony decided to try its hand at a superhero universe of its own. Out of that desire came Sony's Universe of Marvel characters, a franchise comprised of spinoffs based on characters from across Spidey's sandbox.
The franchise kicked off in 2018 with Venom, starring Tom Hardy. The film became an unexpected hit, grossing over $800 million against a reported $100 million budget. Then, came 2021's Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which was a moderate-yet-impressive success, given its release when theaters were only just recovering from the pandemic.
After that, the franchise expanded with Morbius, which was a critical and financial dud. Then, Madame Web followed. Though there were some hopes the movie would help better the franchise's image, it crashed and burned upon release, becoming what could be considered one of the most controversial superhero adaptations out there. The situation picked only slightly back up with the release of Venom: The Last Dance, but things took a turn for the worse with Kraven the Hunter.
Sony's ambitious endeavor ultimately came to a screeching halt, which meant that plans for future installments—including movies based on characters like El Muerto and the Hypno-Hustler—were shelved. Given all the negativity surrounding it, this franchise will likely remain a stain in comic book movie history, but you know what? Despite its many failures, Sony's Marvel Universe was a good experiment.
Sony's Marvel Universe Was Worth A Shot
To be clear, this isn't about the quality of the movies themselves. This is specifically about the concept behind the franchise. Hollywood tends to be risk-averse. It's a business, after all. However, that mentality tends to encourage narrow investment decisions. A good example is the advent of superhero films. Prior to the comic book-movie craze, studios were afraid to invest in superhero media, considering it a significant risk. It wasn't until the arrival of projects like Blade, Spider-Man, X-Men and Iron Man that the industry became more accepting of superheroes.
With comic book adaptations quickly becoming the dominant financial power in Hollywood, many studios scrambled to either secure their own cape IP, or quickly put together their own cinematic universe with whatever brand was available. In the case of Sony, it actually had a comic book IP to test out the waters with, but not one that looked viable or enticing from Hollywood's usual risk-averse perspective.
Sony only has the film rights to characters within the Spider-Man sandbox. These include Black Cat, Tombstone, Scoprion, Venom, Morbius, Madame Web. Aside from Venom, all are fairly obscure pieces of IP. Realistically speaking, few studios would have taken the chance to develop these characters as potential franchise-leads. Yet, Sony did. In fact, not only did it take the chance, but it dug deep into the well of characters at its disposal.
Then, after picking said characters, the studio made the smartest move possible: It went for top-notch talent. Venom brought onboard Tom Hardy. For Morbius, the studio secured Jared Leto, who at the time was still on a career high from his Academy Award for Dallas Buyers Club. For Madame Web, the studio tapped Dakota Johnson, and for Kraven the Hunter, Aaron Taylor-Johnson. All of them stars—with varying degrees of audience awareness, but stars nonetheless. It was a brilliant move by Sony. The Madame Webs and Kravens of it all were probably not going to get the casual viewer into a theater, but recognizable names would.
Adding to that, Sony did one of the most important things a company in the superhero business can do: It kept its budgets in check. The studio was aware of the obscurity of the characters it was playing with, and adapted accordingly. Sony wasn't footing bills upwards of $200 million for its movies.
The company gave the first Venom—which starred arguably its most popular character—$100 million. The first sequel, Let There Be Carnage, was then budgeted at $110 million, while the second one, The Last Dance, had a price tag in the range of $110-$120 million. 2018's Venom came fairly close to a billion, but Sony didn't balloon the franchise's budgets after that return. The same thing can be said for Morbius ($75 million), Madame Web ($80 million) and Kraven the Hunter ($110 million).
Though each of the films ended up a flop, their price tags were small enough that their failure was not a significant dent on Sony's structure. Sony's Marvel Universe was an experiment, and the studio treated it as such with the way it invested in it. Therefore, the idea behind making the movies wasn't the problem. Looking at this situation from Sony's perspective, as the owners of the Spider-Man film rights, it was a smart decision to try to capitalize on the brand power at its disposal.
The problem with the films was their execution. I stand by my enjoyment of every installment in the franchise (heck, I even unironically enjoy Madame Web), but most of them were objectively met with a poor critical reception. They were perceived as low-effort entertainment, and it showed through their financial performance.
On paper, Madame Web is a fascinating character with a gripping backstory. Morbius is a classic-monster tale of a man turning himself into the unthinkable while trying to achieve a goal meant for the common good. At its core, the story of Kraven is that of someone consumed by his inner desires to be the best. These are all rich and compelling setups for potentially outstanding films.
Had the films been crafted with the same care, attention and creative spontaneity that the Spider-Verse movies received, there is no doubt in my mind that they would have been welcomed with open arms by the public. Perhaps their financial performance would have ended up being similar to what it ultimately was; the superhero genre's appeal has arguably experienced a steep decline in recent years, after all. However, financial successes or not, if well received critically, the projects would have likely built up good will with audiences—both general viewers and comic book faithfuls.
Will Sony try again with its Marvel Universe? The future is uncertain, and with the way superheroes have been performing at the box office, that doesn't seem likely. But let's hope the genre continues to deliver outside-the-box projects that enrich the legacy of the comic book movie genre.