Sony's Spider-Man Universe is reportedly dead; no more villain projects to come

I can't say I didn't see this day coming.

Sony's Spider-Man Universe was a bold attempt to build interconnected live-action projects based on secondary Spider-Man characters without the wall-crawler himself. Now, a little over six years after its foundation, that initiative is dead as reported by The Wrap. Sony will now focus on getting production started on the untitled Spider-Man 4 as well as releasing Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Noir. That means projects such as El Muerto and Jackpot won't see the light of day (much to no one's surprise), nor a sequel to Kraven the Hunter. At least, not for now.

On December 8, 2024, Sony held a panel at Comic-Con Experience Brazil (CCXP) in which they presented footage of Kraven the Hunter for everyone in attendance. Unfortunately, there was next to no one in the audience's seats to witness it — a situation that represents the bigger problem at hand: there's no more interest in the SSU. The cinematic universe started as a smashing success, with the first Venom movie earning over $850 million worldwide. Now, it's become a ghost of its past self as Eddie Brock's latest adventure, The Last Dance, will end its theatrical run being the lowest-grossing film in the franchise. Mind you, this is Venom we're talking about; one of the most popular Spider-Man villains ever created. Needless to say, things were far worse for the likes of Morbius or Madame Web, and it seems Kraven will soon be added to that list.

Sony's upcoming and seemingly final movie starring a Spider-Man villain is tracking to earn between $20 to $25 million on its domestic opening weekend, which is even less than Morbius' opening. Funnily enough, this comes after positive reactions to all the footage released so far for Kraven the Hunter, including the movie's eight opening minutes. It seems it's a little too late to change the reputation of the SSU which has been slammed by critics and fans alike. As a Sony insider reported to The Wrap:

"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 IPs to launch new franchises."

A mix of low-quality projects with the fact that Spider-Man himself wouldn't show up to fight the likes of Venom, Morbius, and Kraven has slowly put Sony in a position where it doesn't make financial sense to keep these movies going. This will be the second time in a row that an attempt to build a cinematic universe based on Spider-Man villains will be axed before it even properly kicks off. The ill-fated Amazing Spider-Man 2 was supposed to set the ground for a Sinister Six spin-off that, in turn, would later be followed by a Black Cat and Silver Sable movie. However, as we now know, those plans never came to be due to the same reason: poor storytelling and low profits.

Perhaps it's time for Sony to reconsider if their unlimited money-maker-IP could really keep them afloat, or if it's better to sell the rights back to Marvel. After all, the wall-crawler has been the star of many successful adventures in the Marvel Cinematic Universe where he can share the screen with the likes of, say, Daredevil. Granted, chances are they will just wait to see how people respond to Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and rethink their strategy moving forward. Why create movies and series based on Spider-Man villains if you can use popular Spider-Man variants?

On the bright side, that could mean all efforts will be put into making Spider-Man 4 the very best movie it could be. Maybe Sony will learn from their mistakes and put storytelling first above creating an interconnected universe, but then again, I highly doubt it even with their most recent failure.

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