From Tarek Moustafa

In a wild swing, Sony’s Marvel content quickly went from “could be hit or miss” to a miss becoming an expectation. 

Venom dropped in 2018 and many were skeptical about how that project could even function without Spider-Man. The worry was that a movie centered around a villain, without the true hero, would be a tough sell to audiences. Contrary to the pre-release consensus, the original Venom was a smash with audiences making $850M on a $100M budget. It blew away expectations with Tom Hardy’s zany portrayal of Eddie Brock/Venom leaving audiences waiting to see what came next. Of course Sony greenlit a sequel soon after and cast Woody Harrelson opposite Hardy in Venom: Let There be Carnage. Released in 2021 during the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sequel made $500M on a $110M budget, a solid return but significantly lower than its predecessor. However, the haul was still good enough to warrant a third installment slated to drop this November. The “no superhero” approach seemed to be working.

After the two Venom projects came Morbius starring Jared Leto. Michael Keaton’s Vulture from the MCU Spidey films was a prominent figure in all of the trailers and was thus expected to play a prominent role. Or not. He did a mere walk through in the movie itself, in an appearance that led to nothing for future installments or the plot of the film whatsoever. That was the least of the film's issues, though; Morbius was so bad that it became an unrelenting meme online. Coupled with the film making an abysmal $170M worldwide and Sony’s Marvel slate found itself on the ropes. It couldn’t afford another flop of that magnitude. 

Cut to this year and Sony once again delivers a flop, of the same magnitude no less, with Madame Web. A great cast headlined by Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney (who starred in Anyone But You, a huge hit for Sony) couldn’t bring people out to the theater. The reviews were abysmal from the jump with a critic rating of a whopping 13% and an audience rating of 56% on Rotten tomatoes. The film has been out for nearly two weeks now and has raked in a stellar (note the sarcasm) $53M worldwide. 

Sony’s problem isn’t that it is putting out a couple of bad movies; studios across the industry have put out a couple clunkers from time to time. All it takes is one hit to set you back on the right track. However Morbius and Madame Web were so bad that whatever good will Sony accumulated from Venom has completely washed away. Any anticipation built up for Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s star turn in the upcoming Kraven the Hunter has basically eroded (the film is currently scheduled to release on August 30th, 2024. What is happening? Sony looks to have fallen into the same trap the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) did, but in a worse way. Both studios had a plan for a universe (and high expectations for box office returns) without establishing a strong foundation of good movies. Marvel Studios had four or five major successes before Thor: The Dark World came out (the studio’s first major clunker). 

For now, sticking with Venom and Sony’s animated Spider-Verse projects (Oscar nominated box office hits) is likely the wise choice. Take the tax cut and scrap Kraven all together and reset this thing from scratch. That has to be better than what we’ve been getting. And maybe this “no superhero” approach was a one-hit wonder.

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