The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't a box office flop in 2014, but with a budget that spun wildly out of control and negative reviews, it didn't perform anywhere near as well as Sony Pictures hoped.
As a result, two sequels and Sinister Six were scrapped and Sony decided to team up with Marvel Studios to bring a new version of the wall-crawler into the MCU with 2016's Captain America: Civil War.
Three hit movies followed, but the problem is Sony has to share at least some of the profits with Disney. And, as producer Avi Arad continues to try and exert his control over Sony's Marvel characters, "Sony's Spider-Man Universe" was created...minus Spidey.
With the release of Venom: The Last Dance, we're now five movies into that franchise and the threequel has now cemented an unfortunate Rotten Tomatoes record for these movies.
As you can see below, every single Sony's Spider-Man Universe movie has received a "Rotten" score on the review aggregator.
Venom – 30% Critic, 80% Audience
Venom: Let There Be Carnage – 57% Critic, 84% Audience
Morbius – 15% Critic, 71% Audience
Madame Web – 11% Critic, 56% Audience
Venom: The Last Dance – 38% Critic, 80% Audience
On the one hand, this suggests Sony must be doing something wrong with its Marvel offerings. However, those Audience Scores tell a very different story, with all but Madame Web receiving what would be deemed "Fresh" scores had they been awarded by critics.
What's likely to be more troubling for the studio is that Venom: The Last Dance opened with only $51 million at the North American box office this past weekend. That's a significant decline from the Lethal Protector's previous movies and one which could point to Morbius and Madame Web having destroyed a lot of this franchise's goodwill.
Still, even then, Venom: The Last Dance overperformed overseas with a $175 million global opening to take his three movies beyond the $1.5 billion mark.
Kraven the Hunter is up next and that's the only one of these Sony movies to boast an R-Rating. As of now, the studio has no confirmed projects on the way beyond Amazon's Spider-Noir TV series and the indefinitely delayed Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse.
Despite Sony's live-action struggles, both Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse received widespread critical acclaim, with the former even winning the Best Animated Feature Oscar.
Regardless, can you think of any other live-action franchise with as many as five movies that have all been deemed "Rotten"?