Spider-Man & Sony: 20+ Years of Film Pressure | Flops & Future

Aside from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony has been releasing its own films with Marvel characters from the Spider-Man cosmos in recent years. They weren’t particularly well received by the community. But they have to if they want to keep the figure.

Even though Spider-Man is arguably Marvel’s most iconic character, he is actually only borrowed from Marvel’s films. The film rights to Spider-Man actually belong to Sony Pictures Entertainment. This also includes specific characters from the crawler such as Venom, Mary Jane or James Jonah Jameson.

Sony itself lends Spider-Man to the MCU, so to speak. They worked together in 2017 to introduce a new hero, played by Tom Holland, with Spider-Man: Homecoming. That’s how it is to this day. They argued in 2019, but were able to come to an agreement, as Variety reported at the time.

But for the rights that Sony has owned for over 20 years, they also have to do something themselves. That’s probably one of the reasons why one of the strangest film universes of all time even exists.

Sony and the purchase of Spider-Man

How did Sony even get the rights? Even though Marvel is a big name in the film and series landscape today, things looked very different in the 1990s. In 1999, the comic publisher was in a difficult financial situation. To counteract this, the film rights of some characters were sold.

Sony bought Spider-Man even though they were even offered all the characters. They paid 5.9 million euros. The deal was initially very worthwhile for Sony, but as Forbes reports, the contract at the time also had certain requirements.

In 2014, Sony was hacked and a contract was leaked at that time. Forbes cites the contract and explains that Sony will probably have to release new films every 5 years and 9 months in order to keep the rights with the company. If Sony releases 3 movies in 8 years, they can take 7 years.

The contract may have changed, but Sony still has the rights. If you look at the last few films, Spider-Man is missing, but there was still a Spider-Man film universe.

The Spider-Man universe without Spider-Man

How does Sony continue to retain the rights? If the contract still applies, Sony will have to continue publishing Spider-Man productions. This is probably one of the reasons for the so-called Sonyverse (Sony’s Spider-Man Universe). This refers to the Sony films about the Spider-Man characters, which have been released since 2018 and have been received quite poorly by critics:

Although the films have solid user scores, most of them (except for Venom) were not particularly successful financially. Kraven the Hunterthe last film, only grossed around 53 million euros, according to IMDb, against an estimated budget of 93 million euros. This is a pretty hard flop.

Even though the films about Spider-Man characters without Spider-Man seem pretty strange, it makes sense if you want to keep the brand. Spider-Man is one of the most famous Marvel characters. The 3rd part of the MCU, No Way Homegrossed around 1.6 billion euros (via IMDb), making it the 3rd most successful Marvel film. Sony as a production company also earns a lot from this (source: IGN).

What does MeinMMO film editor Nikolas Hernes say about the Sonyverse? While I certainly had fun with the Venom films, the idea of making a Spider-Man universe without Spider-Man isn’t entirely well thought out.

Most villains work because of their dynamic with the hero and not simply as villains themselves, especially if they weren’t previously known to the audience. Morbius and Madame Web aren’t exactly well-known Marvel villains that are relevant to pop culture.

If the films are still mediocre to bad or are well received, it can only fail. Sony should focus on projects like the animated Spider-Verse or ideas like Spider-Noir.

Spider-Man will still come to theaters (and streaming)

What’s next for Sony and Spider-Man? There are currently no further films planned for the universe with Kraven, Madam Web and Morbius. Sony will continue to rely on the crawler in the future. The third part of the Spider-Verse animated series is scheduled to appear in 2027. The previous two films were not only successful, but also really good.

But Sony is also going in a new direction on streamers. With Spider-Black A new series with Nicolas Cage as an antihero in another universe will be released on May 27th.

Marvel and Disney also have new material for fans. Coming out on July 30, 2026 Spider-Man: Brand New Day and continues the story of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. This year the animated series Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man will continue on Disney Plus.

But what do you think? Sonyverse? Did you enjoy watching them, or didn’t you care about them? Feel free to write us your opinion in the comments. There are many variants of Spider-Man, but some of them will probably never make it to the cinema: 7 absurd variants of Spider-Man that would never get their own Marvel film