Morbius? Madame Web? You haven’t seen the last of them, as Sony film head Tom Rothman insists that its Spider-Man universe isn’t dead. Despite a string of box office failures, the Sony Spider-Man universe – which legally can’t feature Spider-Man – is going to continue. Yes, the ill-fated film series that gave the world Venom, ... The Sony Spider-Man universe isn’t dead, Sony’s Tom Rothman says
Morbius? Madame Web? You haven’t seen the last of them, as Sony film head Tom Rothman insists that its Spider-Man universe isn’t dead.
Despite a string of box office failures, the Sony Spider-Man universe – which legally can’t feature Spider-Man – is going to continue. Yes, the ill-fated film series that gave the world Venom, Morbius, Kraven The Hunter and the truly calamitous Madame Web will rise again – at least in some form.
That’s according to Sony film head honcho Tom Rothman, who was recently a guest on Matt Belloni’s The Town podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter).
When Rothman was quizzed about the status of the Spider-Man franchise (“Is the larger Spider-Verse dead?”), the CEO flatly replied, “No.”
Asked whether it was going to be rebooted with “new people,” Rothman said “yes, yes.”
Rothman seems to be deliberately vague here for some reason, most likely because there isn’t anything specific to announce yet. But still, it’s a different tune from just over a year ago, when Sony released no fewer than three Spider-Man-adjacent movies in cinemas, and two of them were outright financial nightmares.
Venom: The Last Dance was that year’s success story in Sony comic book terms, with the trilogy-closer making just under $480m despite middling reviews. But it was also joined by Madame Web and Kraven The Hunter, which failed to recoup their $100m-ish budgets in cinemas.
Due to legal red tape between Marvel and Sony, none of these films could actually include or even mention Spider-Man in any detail. This reached its absurd zenith in Madame Web, when the name Peter Parker was obscured by the sounds of balloons bursting or a car backfiring.
These movies also appeared to have had a number of behind-the-scenes problems. Madame Web bore all the signs of rewrites and late reshoots, with actors’ lines failing to even match the movements of their lips in some sequences.
Morbius bore all the signs of Jared Leto.
Morbius was so bad that Sony decided to release it twice in 2022, just to make sure it was definitely a flop. And Morbius was a flop – both times.
On the eve of Kraven’s release in December 2024, a Sony source told The Wrap that it was curtains for the SPUMC (Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters).
“The biggest issue with the Sony Spider-Man spinoffs seems to be the lack of quality control,” the source said. “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.”
According to Tom Rothman, Sony isn’t doing that. Instead, it appears to be looking at new ways of reviving a Spider-Man-less Spider-Man franchise that has resulted in some of the weirdest comic book movies of the past decade.
Bring them on, we say.
