Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra oversaw some remarkable box office disappointments in 2024, thanks to the poor performance of Spider-Man spinoffs Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter. However, he knows where the blame lies for both movies failing to succeed: The critics.
“Madame Web underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it,” Vinciquerra explained to the Los Angeles Times in a recent interview. “It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided that they didn’t want us making these films out of Kraven and Madame Web, and the critics just destroyed them. These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason.”
Sony’s Marvel-inspired 2024 bombs did, in fact, did not fare well critically. Kraven the Hunter, which arrived in theaters on December 13th, currently has a 17% Rotten Tomatoes score, while Madame Web is at 11% on the review aggregate service. As someone who reviewed Madame Web when it premiered, 11% feels about right. “It’s not just bad, but it’s bad in very specific ways that reflect a totally different era of superhero filmmaking,” I wrote last February, before going on to compare it to other bad comic book adaptations of the early 2000s.
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There was a third Sony-produced Marvel adaptation this year, Venom: The Last Dance, which Vinciquerra doesn’t accuse critics of murdering — probably because it managed a 41% on Rotten Tomatoes, and $476,368,152 at the global box office according to Box Office Mojo. Instead, he says that while critics also panned Venom, “the audience loved Venom and made Venom a massive hit.” (He does not go on to explain why the audience did not also make Madame Web and Kraven hits, if those movies were in fact “not bad.”
To date, none of the Sony-produced live-action Spider-Man spinoffs, going back to the first Venom, have ever reached the “fresh” threshold on Rotten Tomatoes.
Whatever the cause, Vinciquerra does acknowledge that the studio’s current approach to these movies isn’t working. “I do think we need to rethink it, just because it’s snake-bitten,” he told the Times. “If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is.”
What this actually means for Sony’s Spider-future is unclear. There are still multiple announced projects that could see the light of day — Bad Bunny is no longer attached to star in the wrestling superhero movie El Muerto, but Olivia Wilde may still be involved with a Spider-Woman movie.
There are a few sure things on the horizon, though: Sony will co-produce the next MCU Spider-Man adventure starring Tom Holland, set to premiere in 2025. Also, the third installment of the critically acclaimed Spider-Verse animated series is currently in production.
