“Sony Needs To Lose The Spiderman Rights,” read the top story on the Marvel Studios subreddit on Sunday night. Despite punctuation failures, most seemed to agree that Sony Pictures’ experimental Spidey-less Marvel side-character franchise-ish thing was not working out as well as Garfield Without Garfield.
And unlike most fan outrage, they have the receipts: This weekend, Kraven the Hunter, a vehicle for Spider-Man’s big-game-hunting baddie starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, flamed out in spectacular fashion, making a mere $11 million at the U.S. box office. After a number of delays — Sony punted it from January 2023 to October 2023 to August 2024, then to its final release date of Dec. 13 — the movie opened third, under the reigning champions of Moana 2 and Wicked.
It’s another brutal L for Sony, which has struggled to mine interest in Marvel movies that are only tangentially related to Spider-Man. The studio was off to a decent start when it cast Tom Hardy as Venom, and let him basically do whatever he wanted under the guidance of studio-friendly director Ruben Fleischer. In 2018, Venom was a huge hit, making $213.5 million in the U.S. and $856.1 million worldwide. But the franchise has always been tormented by its two halves: the chaotic Venom comedy that seems to explode out of its star, and the need to be something bigger and more Marvel-y. This year’s Venom: The Last Dance earned lackluster reviews and dwindling box office receipts ($139 million domestically, $475 million worldwide), and everyone involved seemed… kinda over it? And that’s the franchise that’s been working for Sony.
Less successful has been Sony’s attempt to seed other Spider-Man-adjacent villains into its cinematic universe and the general zeitgeist. Morbius, the Jared Leto vampire thriller released in 2022, only made $167 million worldwide — just above Venom: The Last Dance’s haul in the U.S. alone. This year’s Madame Web, as much an incredible theatrical experience as it was, did $100 million around the world (and how much of that resulted from ironic viewing versus actual interest is unclear). Kraven opened to less than Madame Web, setting a record as the lowest opening weekend for one of Sony’s Marvel movies.
Sony has owned the Spider-Man movie rights since 1999 and has put them to good use, first with Sam Raimi’s hit 2000s trilogy, then with the epically scaled Amazing Spider-Man movies starring Andrew Garfield, and eventually pivoting to animation with the Spider-Verse films, which have been box-office bangers as well as Oscar winners. Though rumor-mongers are out there suggesting that Sony might sell off the Marvel rights after the failure of Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven, consider: The company has Beyond the Spider-Verse cooking at its animation studio (though a 2025 release seems unlikely) and is currently filming a live-action Spider-Man Noir series for Amazon based on Nicolas Cage’s character from Into the Spider-Verse.
Also part of the rights package is the deal Sony brokered with Marvel Studios to allow Tom Holland’s Peter Parker to play in the MCU. The deal almost fell apart after two stand-alone movies and the character’s Avengers appearances, but thanks in some part to Holland, his version of Spidey persists, and is set for a fourth Spider-Man movie and an appearance in Avengers: Secret Wars.
Why doesn’t Sony just put Spider-Man in a Venom movie? Or cut straight to a Sinister Six film with Spider-Man as a “villain”? According to recent reporting, it has nothing to do with the Marvel Studios deal — Sony could put Peter Parker in whatever the heck it wanted. But there internal questions over how to use Holland’s Spider-Man specifically, how many Spider-Mans could be floating around the universe(s), and — following the success of Venom — a hope that the studio could build expanded-franchise success without leaning too much on its flagship superhero. But after Kraven the Hunter, one might expect a “Venom vs. Spider-Man” pitch to bubble up through the cracks of Marvel Studios’ grand plans. Fans might beg, but who could imagine Sony giving up on Spider-Man (and all the character entails)?
Kraven the Hunter is currently in theaters, for now.
