Spider-Man: Brand New Day just swung to a staggering $932 million global debut, proving once again that audiences can’t get enough of the web-slinger. What they can apparently do without are Sony’s increasingly lacklustre spinoff movies that don’t even include Spider-Man.
It seems Sony Pictures has finally taken the hint. For now, its plans for future Spider-Man spinoff movies are officially dead.
Although the Venom trilogy was a commercial success, the other spinoffs—Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter—were significant misfires in nearly every aspect.
While chatting with Variety about the enormous box office success of Brand New Day, Sony’s Tom Rothman was asked about the failed spinoffs.
“Ultimately, the audience wasn’t satisfied enough with them,” he said. “Whether that’s a fair assessment of those movies, who knows. That’s howling into the wind. The audience is the boss, and they didn’t respond. It’s as simple as that.“
When asked if the studio would continue developing more Spider-Man spinoffs, Rothman said they didn’t have any in the works at the moment. “Right now, we don’t know,” he said. “We never looked at it as the ‘Sony-Marvel Universe.’ We looked at if there were worthwhile movies to make with other characters. At the moment, there are none in active development.“
I will admit to having fun with the Venom movies, largely thanks to Tom Hardy’s performance, but the others… woof.
Brand New Day is now playing in theaters, and together with The Odyssey, the film has helped to fuel the biggest collective weekend in domestic box office history, with roughly $430 million across all movies in the marketplace.
“What happened is miraculous,” Rothman said. “‘Spider-Man’ is uniting people across cultures and ages. People can piss on theatrical all they want, but that’s one thing that only movies — and movie theaters — can do.“
Our own Chris Bumbray called Brand New Day a surprisingly mature Spider-Man movie that doesn’t try to compete with the spectacle of all three live-action Spider-Men teaming up in No Way Home. You can check out his review right here, and make sure to let us know what you thought of the film as well.
Is there a way to do these Spider-Man spinoff movies right? Let us know in the comments.