While Marvel Studios saw the film rights to “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men” returned to them after Disney acquired 21st Century, Sony Pictures moved forward with a string of their own Marvel movies featuring villain characters introduced in “Spider-Man” comic books starting with “Venom” back in 2018. However, seven years into the Sonyverse it hasn’t been terribly successful for them and a new report suggests it could be over after some major stumbles.

Forbes is presenting an early sign that their latest effort “Kraven The Hunter” could end up becoming the studio’s third major Marvel flop within a short amount of time with an estimated domestic opening weekend of $13-15 million, which is sort of on par with what “Madame Web” made opening weekend earlier in the year, and earned a poultry $100.4 million. The Jared Leto-led flick “Morbius” was the first of the Sonyverse films to have trouble making a profit after it took in $167.4 million.

The R-rated film (not originally meant as an R-rated film) reportedly has a budget of $110 million after multiple rounds of reshoots. Making a similar amount of money to either “Madame Web,” and “Morbius” would be another major loss for them in 2024. While the three “Venom” movies have made Sony a decent amount of money the two sequels have had diminishing returns compared to the first installment’s impressive haul of $856 million, and “Venom: The Last Dance” ($473 million globally) hasn’t made enough money to cover the losses on the other two films they’ve released.

Sony Pictures is a business and isn’t looking to break even or lose heaps of money on these films, so, when it was reported this week by The Wrap that the studio was pumping the breaks on future Sonyverse films, it is understandable and makes sense from a business perspective. It should be also pointed out that while there had been a bunch of other Sonyverse film development plans reported on in the past, we’re still waiting on any of them being greenlit including projects like “Jackpot,” “Nightwatch,” and others such as a “Spider-Woman” film that once had Olivia Wilde attached to direct. None of those films have had any concrete updates from Sony.

Spending those seven years trying to convince audiences that their Sonyverse films would have substantial connectivity to Tom Holland’s “Spider-Man” films (set in the mainline Marvel Cinematic Universe and made by Marvel Studios) without much or any real follow-through has felt like false advertising on the studio’s part to get asses in seats. Ultimately, their bizarre marketing gimmick to call the films “Spider-Man spinoffs” without any real involvement of the Web Head in them felt like Sony cashing in on the Marvel/Spider-Man branding by talking up a connection without really showing that on the big screen.

As it stands, “Spider-Man 4” from Marvel Studios and director Destin Daniel Cretton (“Shang-Chi & The Legend of The Ten Rings”) is the only major live-action feature film project on deck with “Spider-Man Noir” starring Nicolas Cage being made for Amazon bringing the “Spider-Verse” characters to the small screen.

SOURCE: THE WRAP & FORBES