Sony Footage CEO Tony Vinciquerra oversaw some exceptional field workplace disappointments in 2024, because of the poor efficiency of Spider-Man spinoffs Madame Net and Kraven the Hunter. Nevertheless, he is aware of the place the blame lies for each films failing to succeed: The critics.
“Madame Net underperformed within the theaters as a result of the press simply crucified it,” Vinciquerra defined to the Los Angeles Occasions in a latest interview. “It was not a nasty movie, and it did nice on Netflix. For some cause, the press determined that they didn’t need us making these movies out of Kraven and Madame Net, and the critics simply destroyed them. These are usually not horrible movies. They had been simply destroyed by the critics within the press, for some cause.”
Sony’s Marvel-inspired 2024 bombs did, the truth is, didn’t fare nicely critically. Kraven the Hunter, which arrived in theaters on December thirteenth, at present has a 17% Rotten Tomatoes rating, whereas Madame Net is at 11% on the evaluation mixture service. As somebody who reviewed Madame Net when it premiered, 11% feels about proper. “It’s not simply unhealthy, however it’s unhealthy in very particular ways in which replicate a completely completely different period of superhero filmmaking,” I wrote final February, earlier than occurring to check it to different unhealthy comedian e book diversifications of the early 2000s.
There was a 3rd Sony-produced Marvel adaptation this 12 months, Venom: The Final Dance, which Vinciquerra doesn’t accuse critics of murdering — most likely as a result of it managed a 41% on Rotten Tomatoes, and $476,368,152 on the world field workplace in response to Field Workplace Mojo. As an alternative, he says that whereas critics additionally panned Venom, “the viewers cherished Venom and made Venom an enormous hit.” (He doesn’t go on to clarify why the viewers didn’t additionally make Madame Net and Kraven hits, if these films had been the truth is “not unhealthy.”
To this point, not one of the Sony-produced live-action Spider-Man spinoffs, going again to the primary Venom, have ever reached the “contemporary” threshold on Rotten Tomatoes.
Regardless of the trigger, Vinciquerra does acknowledge that the studio’s present method to those films isn’t working. “I do suppose we have to rethink it, simply because it’s snake-bitten,” he instructed the Occasions. “If we put one other one out, it’s going to get destroyed, irrespective of how good or unhealthy it’s.”
What this truly means for Sony’s Spider-future is unclear. There are nonetheless a number of introduced tasks that would see the sunshine of day — Dangerous Bunny is not hooked up to star within the wrestling superhero film El Muerto, however Olivia Wilde should be concerned with a Spider-Lady film.
There are just a few positive issues on the horizon, although: Sony will co-produce the subsequent MCU Spider-Man journey starring Tom Holland, set to premiere in 2025. Additionally, the third installment of the critically acclaimed Spider-Verse animated sequence is at present in manufacturing.
