Next Spider-Verse movie gets disappointing release update; fans shocked

When audiences first watched Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse on its release, they couldn't wait to see how Miles Morales' story would be followed up in less than a year. At least, that's what Sony originally said. See, Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse was supposed to be released on March 29, 2024, until an infinite delay struck the highly-anticipated movie. Now with 2024 coming to an end, we still don't know when we'll get to see Miles, Gwen, and Peter reunite on the big screen and save the world from a multiversal collapse. However, we did get a release window update and things aren't looking promising.

Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse won't be released on 2025

According to a report by Deadline, Sony is taking "a lot of tender loving care" with Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse. So much so, that the movie won't be released in 2025. This decision comes after it was announced Sony's Spider-Man Universe is dead thanks to the failures of movies such as Morbius, Madame Web, and, more recently, Kraven the Hunter. We all knew it was time for the studio to re-think its strategy with one of the most beloved Marvel IPs ever, and it looks like that's finally happening.

According to the report, Sony "cut several pages" of the script of Madame Web resulting in a very disjointed final product. Besides, the negative perception of Kraven the Hunter ahead of its release seriously hurt its box office resulting in what might be just an $11 million opening on a budget of $110 million. People were detracted by the quality of Kraven's GCI (which is indeed one of the main problems plaguing the movie), the bad reputation of previous projects such as Morbius, and the fact that we all knew Spider-Man wouldn't show up. Now, Sony is (finally) taking these missteps seriously and looking to learn from them moving forward, which explains the Spider-Verse delay.

Even if Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse was a fantastic award-winning movie with great box office results, its production was more volatile. More than 100 animators quit mid-production due to poor conditions which saw them work 11 hours a day all seven days of the week. Perhaps such an unsustainable environment resulted in a major blockbuster success the first time around, but chances are Sony wouldn't catch lightning in a bottle twice.

We all know rushing production on Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse is a bad call, so it's nice to see the studio wants to take its time to craft something amazing. In the words of the legendary video game creator, Shigeru Miyamoto: "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad". Well, that same logic applies to big-screen releases as well.

That means 2026 could be the year of the Spider, with both the MCU's Spider-Man 4 and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse making their way onto the big screen. Besides, Tom Holland's Peter Parker will also come back for Avengers: Doomsday, so we'd have three major releases with the wall-crawler having a protagonistic role. And while this is just speculation on the video game industry, rumor has it Insomniac Games has also been developing a Venom stand-alone video game. So fingers crossed it can also make its way to shelves in 2026 just to cap things off. For now, we have Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man to look forward to in January as well as a possible 2025 release of Spider-Man: Noir.

Even with the Spider-Verse delay announcement, it's still a fantastic time to be a fan of the wall-crawler.

Spider-Man 4 will be released on Jul. 24, 2026.