Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe has been something of a running joke in the comic book movie scene given that it’s entirely about Spider-Man villains with no actual Spider-Man. Well, that’s not true, Madame Web had Peter Parker as a few-hours-old infant. But generally, no.
Now, Venom: The Last Dance is out and cements the fact that all the movies in Sony’s universe have put up Rotten review averages. However, the Venom trilogy is profitable and well-liked as goofy fun for comic fans, even if critics don’t like it. Still, compared to the MCU proper, there are only two films ever that have had Rotten (sub-60% scores). Out of 34 movies. Here’s how the Sony-verse breaks down, also with audience scores (this includes the excellent animated Spider-Verse movies, of course):
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage – 57% critic, 84% audience
- Venom: The Last Dance – 37% critic, 77% audience
- Venom – 30% critic, 80% audience
- Morbius – 15% critic, 71% audience
- Madame Web – 11% critic, 56% audience
While it’s well established that audiences like Venom movies and critics don’t, I am surprised to see a 56% difference for Morbius, which…I have to believe that was part of the meme movement around that film when it came out (Morbillions of dollars at the box office, it’s Morbin’ time, etc). Madame Web, meanwhile, is the lowest ranked of them all, and one of the lowest-rated modern superhero movies ever, also with a Rotten Audience score. But I maintain Madame Web is fully in the “so bad it’s good” category of movies and it was hilarious, fun experience to watch in theaters.
Next up is Kraven the Hunter, the third Sonyverse movie to come out this year alone, out on December 13. It looks to be a pretty self-serious action film starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as a reimagined version of the villain that murders poachers instead of animals. I actually thought the trailer was pretty good, but if history has taught us anything, the odds are not in its favor.
Where things go from here feels pretty messy. Tom Hardy has unequivocally said he’s done playing Venom, but Sony says it will be leaning hard into more symbiote content, mainly focused on Knull, it seems, introduced in Venom: The Last Dance and played by Andy Serkis. There have also of course been rumors since the first Venom movie that the universe would crash into the MCU eventually, and while that was indeed teased at one point, nothing has come of it. Grand fan theories involve things like Marvel mega-big-bad Knull crashing into the MCU for Spider-Man 4 but there’s just no actual evidence of that. Another theory is that Sony will “borrow” Tom Holland for some content or it will cast its own Spider-Man, possibly even bringing back Andrew Garfield. Again, wild speculation.
Does Sony…care about how bad these movies review compared to the MCU? Most of the time, probably not. The Venom movies, however they review, have made a lot of money. I’m sure they don’t want more Madame Web-style bombs, but I don’t think you can consider all these movies total failures based on review scores. But what happens next with no more Venom? I can’t say I have a ton of faith in whatever that will be.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
