Is The Sony Live-Action Venom-Verse/Spider-Verse Doomed To Fail?
Much has been said over the years of the aggressive negotiations between Sony and Marvel since Sony currently owns the rights to several Marvel characters that can be used in live-action and animated productions. However, the crown jewels of this collection of character rights are, without a doubt, Spider-Man, which covers all and future iterations of the character Peter Parker/Spider-Man along with alternate versions and alter egos.
Sony is also the proud owner of many other Spider-Man villains and characters, such as Venom, Carnage, Black Cat, Morbius The Living Vampire, and Kraven The Hunter. Some of these characters have already been made into live-action projects, and others are in various stages of production. It is evident that due to the popularity of Spider-Man that this is where their focus is on utilizing their rights in the hope that they could build something along the lines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage movies have kicked off what is now referred to as Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, although I prefer to use the Venom-verse terminology.
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Venom was the sleeper hit of 2018 for Sony’s new Marvel-related releases. Despite being widely panned by the critics, it was well-received by general moviegoers and is undoubtedly considered a worthy debut introducing a character that, for most people, was generally unknown. While not being a critical success, there is no doubt that Sony was happy with a worldwide box office of $856.1 million against a budget of somewhere between $100 - $116 million. Those returns clearly made Sony see the potential of the properties they owned and look to further build on that success.
Venom (2018)
The Venom sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, hit cinemas in 2021 and continued the story of Eddie Brock/Venom. This time around, the movie fared much better with critics, although it still didn’t wow them and was slightly better received from an audience perspective despite the film showing little in the way of character development or story and was more of a journey to an epic showdown at the end. Venom: Let There Be Carnage was undoubtedly a sad victim of the Covid-19 pandemic at the box office. Worldwide box office gross was $502.1 million against a production budget of $110 million. It also managed to beat the opening weekend box office of the first Venom movie.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
So, just like in the music industry, Sony was then facing that tricky third album. This came in the form of Morbius, which was released in 2022 and has only been out for a week. Like Venom, Morbius was another movie introducing a new character to the Venom-verse. Critically Morbius has not really been well received, but it should be noted that its ratings are very similar to those of Venom, although the comments are a lot harsher. Audience reaction has been mixed; it is definitely lower than both Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage but is also by no means a complete disaster. The production budget was between $75 - $83 million and has received a worldwide box office of $86 million after only a week. Based on this, and along with being placed first in the box office ratings, it is likely that Morbius will prove to be a worthy return on Sony’s investment despite not receiving stellar ratings from critics and audiences alike.
Morbius (2022)
There are two ways to measure the success of a movie. First up, we have the ratings from critics and audiences in media and on various websites. The other, which is really the most important for Sony, is the financial success at the box office versus the production and marketing budget for the release. Both Venom and Venom: Let There Be Carnage can definitely be considered commercially successful, and despite the critics not raving about either movie, they were both well received by the audience. Despite being panned by critics, Morbius is on a similar trajectory and has fared better with audiences, although not as much as the Venom movies. With such a surprisingly low production budget, there is no doubt that Morbius will still be considered a success by Sony once its theatre run is over.
I am sure there that with the amazing commercial success that the Marvel Cinematic Universe release 2021 of Spider-Man: No Way Home had, the executives at Sony will be wondering how they can try and replicate that formula to elevate their Venom-verse franchise. Let’s be clear here that the success of the Spider-Man movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is down to the creative vision of people like Kevin Feige at Marvel rather than any creative input from Sony. That’s not to say they don’t have any input, but it will be limited. Sony allowing the use of Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is good for business for Sony from a revenue perspective. It is unclear how much creative help they can get from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s use of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man character.
Sony is possibly trying to build something towards a Sinister Six movie. So far, they have not actually pulled the trigger on using a version of Spider-Man in the Venom-verse, although it is clear that he does exist there. Now that we have had both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield versions of Peter Parker/Spider-Man appear together along with Tom Holland in Spider-Man: No Way Home, the door could well be open for them to us either Maguire or Garfield as a Venom-verse Spider-Man, I think it is unlikely that we will see a full Tom Holland crossover. Indeed, seeing Peter Parker/Spider-Man appear in the Venom-verse would be most welcome. It will only work if Sony can work out what to do with him based on what’s been built.
Kraven The Hunter (2023)
Next on the Sony Venom-verse slate is Kraven The Hunter, which is currently due for release in 2023. This is another new character as far as the general cinema audience is concerned. Unfortunately, looking at many of the upcoming movie schedules, the characters would be considered either minor or unknown, which introduces an element of risk for those releases. Even Marvel struggled with introducing The Eternals, so Sony will have an even steeper hill to climb unless they start carefully thinking about their plans. Unless……
Good quality stories, sensible integration points, and a plan are what Sony need to start getting in place for them to succeed. Marvel clearly builds their Marvel Cinematic Universe phases of movies with a plan in place covering all scheduled productions. If Sony can do this and get the right set of writers on board and preferably some sort of person carrying a Kevin Feige type role, then they have a good set of Marvel properties that have the potential to be crafted into a well-thought-out and subversive universe.
I’ll be sincere that my view has changed in writing this article. My initial feelings were that the Sony Venom-verse was doomed to fail, but on evaluating how things have gone for them so far with Venom, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, and Morbius, I believe they do have a chance to make a go of things and keep these movies coming for the foreseeable future as long as they handle the story side of things with respect. Sony has shown with their animated movie Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse that with the right team of writers, they can produce a high-quality, engaging story, so they just need to apply that approach to live-action.
What do you think, have Sony got what it takes to keep the Venom-verse going, or will it lose its way and eventually fail?
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Source(s): Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office MOJO, The Numbers