If you assumed that Kraven The Hunter would be the final entry in Sony’s Spider-Man movie universe, it would seem that is not actually the case. A new report from Variety regarding the reaction to Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff movies without Spider-Man provides a lot of crucial context about how things have played out, both internally and externally, and one of the more surprising revelations is that according to one Sony source, Sony’s deal with Disney never precluded Sony from using Spider-Man in its movies that don’t bear his name. So why didn’t Sony use him then? Well, that’s where things get interesting.
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As the report indicates, you can see this in action by looking at the Spider-Verse movies, which don’t carry the Spider-Man name and thus are free to use Peter Parker and Spider-Man. So if movies like Venom, Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter also didn’t use Spider-Man in their titles, why wasn’t Spidey in those as well?
According to that Sony source, there was a feeling within the studio that audiences would not accept Tom Holland’s Spider-Man showing up in live-action films that weren’t a part of the MCU. This was especially true after Marvel started to try and define boundaries in how the mulitiversal universe worked in Loki, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and of course Spider-Man: No Way Home.
So it’s not that Sony couldn’t have used Spider-Man in Morbius, Madame Web, or Kraven the Hunter, but they thought including him wouldn’t be accepted by audiences. A top executive described as having extensive experience in the superhero space describes this all as working within a cage. They said, “The corporate entanglements when studios try to work together are really hard. Sony has no flexibility. They have a cage that they have to work in, and they’re just trying to make one good movie at a time.”
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This was true of Morbius in a way, as the delay in its release meant they had to go in and do reshoots so they could explain why Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes and his appearance in the movie. The film was supposed to release in 2020, but due to the pandemic it was delayed, and films like No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness then released and complicated that timeline and how the multiverse worked.
That said, films like Madame Web and Kraven have had more of a clear runway in that regard, and both opted to either not use or cut out things that were supposed to tie Spider-Man in. It’s a bit more puzzling as to why you wouldn’t use Spider-Man in either of those, especially if you’re introducing characters that have so much to do with the Spider-powered side of your universe in Madame Web.
It will be interesting to see where Sony’s Spider-Man universe goes from here, but the report states that they aren’t moving away from it completely. Sony Insiders say that they just will need to be a bit more selective about which characters to launch into their own franchise, especially if they are going to continue not included Spider-Man in any sort of real way.
What do you think about Sony’s decision not to include Spider-Man in spinoff projects? You can talk all things Marvel and Spider-Man with me on Threads @mattaguilarcb and on Bluesky @knightofoa!
