Why Sony's Answer To The MCU Never Stood A Chance

Sony's initial Sam Raimi-driven Spider-Man trilogy held the mantle as the reigning champion of the superhero movie genre for a long time

However, a lot has changed about the art of making comic book films in the intervening 20 years

a fact that somehow seems lost on Sony executives with their repeated attempts at launching a cinematic universe

I'm not sure how I got here. Has to do with Spider-Man, I think

I think a bunch of guys like us should team up. Cast your minds back before every intellectual property known to man had a cinematic universe connected to it

Despite Spider-Man 3 being a box office smash, Sony announced it was abandoning plans for a Spider-Man 4 starring Tobey Maguire

This would obviously give way to the two Amazing Spider-Man movies starring Andrew Garfield

Spider-Man. During the lead-up to the premiere of Amazing Spider-Man, superhero mega-producer Avi Arad discussed the potential of having a solo Venom franchise

outside of these new Spider-Man films, making this the first stutter step toward the shared

and connected filmic universe featuring villains of the old webhead. This plan was further expanded

with the release of Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was intended to lay the groundwork for a network

of films, the initial two supposedly being Venom and a Sinister Six film. Needless to say

Amazing Spider-Man 2 failed at the box office, leading everyone at Sony to rethink this direction

And a mere two years later, Marvel stepped in to take Spider-Man back under control for Captain

America Civil War. And here's where our story splits in two halves. On one half, we have the

MCU Spidey films and mega producer Amy Pascal's efforts to develop a potential animated Spider-Man

project And on the other hand we have the eventual shared universe of Spider villain films 2016 saw Avi Arad and Matt Tolmak back in the producing seats bringing Venom to the big screen

this time as a solo character with an eye on building a universe around him

We are Venom. Venom might be a symbiote from an alien world, but in the comics

most of the character's actual powers come from the time he was bonded to Peter Parker

Venom's origin, his motivation, and his powers are all tied directly to a character Sony couldn't really use

So what do you do? Well, logically, you'd probably start with the idea of making a tragic downfall of a journalist consumed with jealousy

That's not what Sony opted for. Instead, it's a movie about Tom Hardy doing a funny voice and fighting with himself

You are a loser, Eddie. And you know what? Surprisingly, this thing worked

Well, at least on the financial front. Believe it or not, the movie that's been in on-again, off-again development since the 90s

actually demolished at the box office. It pulled in approximately $856 million worldwide

Avi Arad's dreams were finally coming true, a shared universe of Spider-Films

But now, with the bizarre restriction of still not having Spider-Man. What if everyone forgot who I was

What? This time make everyone forget who Peter Parker is. We'd have no memory of you

It would be as though you never existed. Out of this situation, a flurry of announcements happened after having been put on the backburner

Chief among them were a supposed night watch film that Spike Lee was going to direct

a Black Cat and Silver Sable team-up film, and a reworked version of The Sinister Six

I am a lion! Obviously, none of these films ever came to be

What we got instead was more of the same, but with an added sprinkling of Woody Harrelson

Shut your mouth Venom Let There Be Carnage is one of the most phoned and by superhero sequels ever produced The snooze fest would have been a lot more fun if Harrelson actually looked like a psychotic clown the whole runtime

But you know what? It didn't matter. It made a ton of money

Over $500 million to be precise. That being said, at least the film is only 96 minutes long

And if you thought this movie was a low point for global culture, you missed the next entry into the Spider-Man villain universe

April 1st, 2022 saw the release of the much-delayed and obviously heavily re-edited Morbius

This film just failed to sink its teeth into anything substantial at the box office

pulling in only $167 million worldwide. But here's the kicker. Morbius is the only theatrically released feature film to fail twice

That's right. After the film bombed the first time, the internet did what the internet does and mercilessly made fun of the film

giving Michael Morbius the fake catchphrase, It's Morbid Time. Attempting to capitalize off the memification of the poor quality of the film

they re-released it into theaters only for literally no one to show up again

It failed epically. Both Venom films feel like coldly calculated movies from directors looking to have a boost to their careers

while Morbius just feels like a miscast story told by someone who had absolutely no passion for what they're attempting to say

And now here we are, staring down the barrel of three more movies set in this universe

Kraven the Hunter, Venom 3, and a Madame Web film. All of these are supporting characters and don't have a reason to exist

outside of being a foil for some aspect of Spider-Man's personality. So, when you remove Spider-Man, what are you trying to tell a story about

Now that Spider-Man's gone, the city will never be the same. If Morbius and Venom were released in the early 2000s alongside Daredevil Ang Lee Hulk and Ghost Rider they would feel absolutely at home Studios were still somewhat unsure of how faithfully they should be adapting the tried and true trappings of the superhero genre

No bright colors, no spandex, and no big ideas for the universe that the heroes lived in

That's exactly how all these Sony Spider-Villains films feel. They're stuck being self-conscious adaptations of characters that don't need to have $200 million

poured into them. And Kraven might be the best example of this phenomenon

He is weak, like his mother. Leave him. Venom? Huge fanbase. He's even been an anti-hero during his Lethal Protector era

Morbius? Sure, you could probably find some way of making a cool Blade-esque or

Dracula in modern times movie out of that character. But Kraven? He's got one attribute

He's a hunter. His motivation is to take down the most dangerous prey

The movie they're trying to convince us to go see, he's a super-powered vigilante

It's Dexter meets them animal. He has the ability to absorb animal powers

and then he hunts criminals. No, that's not a Kraven movie. That's a movie produced by people who don't care or like the character

If you don't know the source material, maybe don't make it into a movie

You're a goddamn lunatic. Oh, you just figured that out now? And it's not going to be slowing down anytime soon

There are reports that as many as eight new spider villain movies are currently in active development

The two we currently know the most about are a Donald Glover project centering on HypnoHustler

and a movie about El Muerto, which at one time was set to star Bad Bunny

Sony isn't attempting to accomplish anything other than to pick up the scraps that the MCU and the DCU leave behind

Their cynicism is evident over every frame of these films, and apparently it's financially

successful for them. It's just a tragedy that these characters and audience are the ones truly suffering