Venom, Morbius, Madame Web, and now Kraven the Hunter. What do all these properties have in common? They all have stand alone films produced by Sony that are somewhat connected to the rest of the Spider-Man/MCU universe… but somehow not at the same time. Kraven the Hunter is the latest installment to hit big screens, coming out on the 13th of this month.
The comic-con preview for Kraven was not exactly a success, and (possibly) because of that response TheWrap is reporting that Sony has decided to pull the plug on future villain movies for the time being. Let’s be honest, if Kraven can’t garner an audience there are not many other Spider-Man villains that will be able to. Venom had a strong box office outing because of the character’s popularity, whereas characters like Madame Web and Morbius do not carry that level of intrinsic popularity.
It’s being reported that Sony will now be strictly focused on the next Tom Holland led Spider-Man installment, and I think I speak for most fans when I say… it’s about time. Sony did well with the mainline Spider-Man movies, the Venom trilogy, and the Into the Spiderverse animated franchise, but outside of that they have decided they are better off hanging up the fangs and evil webs. According to a talent agent from the company, “They’ve developed what they want to develop for now. It’s really about the next ‘Spider-Man’ film.” Sony is also still working on the Spider-Man Noir television series that will feature the intriguing character introduced in the Spiderverse movies, starring Nicholas Cage.
Between Venom, Let There Be Carnage, and The Last Dance, box office numbers were strong but the first movie in the trilogy still did a bulk of the work with $900 million in revenue, and to be honest that’s actually pretty good. Considering the follow up Venom movies couldn’t maintain any sort of box office consistency, it’s hard to believe that anything else Sony puts out will end up being financially successful. And this includes Kraven, a movie I am personally looking forward to.
It’s not been said if Marvel will ever actually do anything with Venom or Kraven, and Kraven is still up in the air considering his movie hasn’t even come out yet. Everything right now is still speculation. This isn’t to say that Sony will never visit these types of properties again, but if they do it will not be for quite a while until they actually have stories that are worth telling.