Sony's run out of SPUMC! That's right, dear readers — even though JC Chandor's hard-R rated Kraven The Hunter hasn't quite hit cinemas yet, it would appear that the movie's parent studio is getting set to call time on the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters all the same. According to a new report from The Wrap into the reasons why the SPUMC well has run dry, the Aaron Taylor-Johnson starring Kraven movie — which is set to open in 1,000 less cinemas than Venom: The Last Dance did earlier this year — will be the final nail in the coffin of Sony's attempts to make a shared universe out of Spider-Man's rogues gallery.
Though Sony declined to comment on The Wrap's in-depth story, the picture painted — of a movie studio that sunk $465 million into producing such fare as Madame Web, Morbius, and the projected-to-open-to-just-$15-million Kraven The Hunter without their talismanic web-headed wall-crawler — isn't a flattering one. "The biggest issue with the Sony Spider-Man spinoffs seems to be the lack of quality control. The movies just aren’t good,” an insider at Sony told The Wrap. “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 IP to launch new franchises.”
It's a sobering read on the situation at Sony, but not an unfair one. Having seeded the idea of a Sinister Six supervillain team-up movie way back when with The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — only for the Amazing series to fall apart following the movie's poor performance with critics and cinema goers alike — the SPUMC project has never really threatened to find its juice: even the introduction of symbiote god Knull in Venom: The Last Dance felt more like an afterthought than a set-up, despite reports that a Sinister Six movie may have been in the offing at long last with the King in Black's arrival. So where does that leave Sony now? Well, according to a 'top talent agent' The Wrap spoke to for their piece, all roads lead to Spidey — even if Tom Holland is the MCU's one and only Spider-Man right now and will be until at least 2026's Spider-Man 4. “They’ve developed what they want to develop for now,” said the agent, “So it’s really about the next Spider-Man film.”
With Spider-Noir shooting right now, and Beyond The Spider-Verse still to come as Sony's animated Spider-Verse reaches its conclusion, there are still Marvel projects on their way from the studio who once ruled the comic book movie making roost. But, for now at least, it looks like SPUMC has come to a premature climax. Pass us the tissues.