Sony’s live-action Spider-Verse franchise – made up of films featuring supporting characters that are part of their overall deal for the movie rights to Marvel Comics’ Spider-Man character – is getting a much needed reboot.
The news comes from Sony studio chief Tom Rothman himself, in the second part of a two-part interview on Matt Belloni’s podcast The Town, which was released earlier today.
Rothman broke the news in the following exchange with Belloni –
MB – Where are we in the Spiderman franchise? Not the animated Spider-Verse, [but] is the larger Spider-Verse dead?
TR – No.
MB – Are you going to go back to those at some point?
TR – Yes.
MB – You will?
TR – Yes.
MB – But it will be a fresh reboot with new people?
TR – Yes, yes.
Rothman went on to characterize Sony’s relationship with Marvel, specifically how the two studios are sharing the rights to the Peter Parker Spider-Man character as “great” and “one of the great deals for both companies ever.”
The news of a live-action reboot does not come as much of a surprise. Outside of the Tom Holland-starring Spider-Man films and their own trilogy of films featuring the anti-hero Venom, the rest of Sony’s movies that have attempted to exploit the other Spider-Man-related characters that the studio has access to have been both box-office and critical duds.
As part of their on-going rights deal with Marvel, Sony controls the film rights to a large catalog of Spider-Man supporting and ancillary character rights. Looking at the success Marvel Studios has had with their cinematic universe, Sony looked to build something similar but using the Spider-Man characters that they had access to.
While the three Venom films were big box office success, the other three live action films that were part of this initiative – Morbius (2022), Madame Web (2024) and Kraven The Hunter (2024) – were all flops. Fortunately for Sony, the Venom films, along with the live-action Spider-Man films proper co-produced with Marvel and their two animated Spider-Verse films were all successful enough to keep the overall franchise in the black.
Sony had hoped to have these six live action films and their two animated Spider-Verse films be connected to the over multiverse currently seen in Marvel’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, there has been no actual connection outside of two short moments in the second and third Venom films.
This does raise a question as to the fate of the number of films that have been reported as being in development for the studio. These include untitled projects from Robert Orci and Olivia Wilde, the long gestating The Secret Six and Donald Glover’s Hypno-Hustler movie (which, truth be told, we really want to see). Will these projects be abandoned, or retooled for this new iteration of the franchise? Time will tell.
