Summary
Outgoing Sony CEO Tony Vinciquerra has some things to say before his time as chief of the studio is over. And chief among the things he’s saying is that he’s more than a little surprised that his company’s approach to theSpider-Manuniverse hasn’t worked.
That approach by Sony has been to focus on other heroes (but mostly villains) that have been tied toSpider-Manin Marvel comics. Venom was the first and for a while it looked like the company had a successful approach.Venom: Let There Be Carnagewas receivedwarmly enough (though still not actually a financial or critical success) that it encouraged Sony to go ahead with releasing even more movies that were tied to this particular comic world butMorbius,Madame Web,Venom: The Last DanceandKraven The Hunterwere all box office and critical failures.
Sony Blames The Media For Spider-Man Universe Struggles
Those movies were received poorly enough that reports have surfaced thatSony is rethinking its strategywhen it comes to the Spiderverse. In a recent interview withtheLos Angeles Times, Tony Vinciquerra, the outgoing CEO confirmed that the struggles of the Spider-Man off-shoot franchise has the company reevaluating how they are going about things. However, he didn’t admit that it was the quality of the product that is the reason they are changing their strategy. It’s that critics and audiences have been far too harsh about the movies that have been released so far.
“I do think we need to rethink it,” Vinciquerra told the paper. “Just because it’s snake-bitten. If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is.” Just in case people thought that comment was simply poorly thought out, he went on to make it clear that he did truly believe the media was the problem, more than thequality of movies likeKraven the Hunter.
“For some reason, the press decided that they didn’t want us making these films out of Kraven [the Hunter] and Madame Web and the critics just destroyed them.” He then went on to claim that the critics have had it out for the Sony Marvel Cinematic Universe from the beginning. “They also did it withVenom, but the audience lovedVenomand madeVenoma massive hit. These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason.”
The Sony CEO isn’t entirely wrong. The audience score for the original Venom movie scored an 80% onRotten Tomatoes, while scoring a 30% among critics. However, none of the other movies have had the kind of box office success the original film did.
There’s also the argument that while those audience scores are quite a bit higher (Kraven the Hunterhas a 16% critic ratingand a 71% audience rating), those audience scores are far easier to manipulate through online campaigns. There have been more than a few movies who have been review bombed for reasons other than the actual quality of the film. Having said all that, it’s clear that Vinciquerra doesn’t believe the problem lies with Sony and how it handled itsSpider-Manfranchise.
