A lot of people have been saying that Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters (or the SUMC) was a bad idea, but Venom apparently made money, and Sony has been trying to replicate the success with Morbius, Madame Web, and now Kraven the Hunter.
Though it has been rumoured that Sony is building up to a team-up movie with Knull, it looks like that won’t be happening anymore. According to The Wrap, Kraven may be the real “last dance” for the SUMC, and now Sony is just going to be focusing on three upcoming Spidey projects—Spider-Man 4 with Tom Holland, Beyond the Spider-Verse, and the live-action Spider-Noir with Nicolas Cage.
When it came to the closing of the SUMC, an insider had said, “The biggest issue with the Sony Spider-Man spinoffs seems to be the lack of quality control. The movies just aren’t good… Sometimes that lack of quality meets a movie no one asked for, which was the case with Madame Web, and that is a no-win scenario. It may be time for Sony to start cultivating different IP to launch new franchises.”
As a staunch defender of Madame Web as an enjoyable camp movie, there’s no denying that the spinoffs outside of Venom have all been big flops, and even reviews for Kraven have not been nice to the film.
If anything, there’s still a chance for these characters to show up down the line as actual Spider-Man villains. We don’t know what Sony has planned, but maybe they can just shift focus on various different Spider-People as compared to just making villain movies that don’t mention Spider-Man at all.
Kraven the Hunter comes to cinemas this week on Dec. 13.
