Sony Pictures partnered with Marvel Studios in 2015 to bring Spider-Man into the MCU, starting with Captain America: Civil War. With the web-slinger’s popularity on the rise, Sony decided to move forward with its own Spidey-adjacent projects, starting with Venom in 2018.
The movie bombed with fans and critics, but made $856.1 million worldwide. The sequels, Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Venom: The Last Dance, grossed less ($506.8 million and $478.9 million, respectively) but were still moderate hits.
Outside of the Lethal Protector, Sony found little success. Morbius made only $167.5 million, Madame Web followed with $100.5 million, and Kraven the Hunter was the biggest flop of the lot with a mere $62 million.
Shortly after the movie’s release at the end of 2024, we heard that Sony had shelved all its live-action “spin-offs” to focus on Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Brand New Day.
Talking on The Town with Matt Belloni, Sony CEO Tom Rothman was asked if the studio will go back to the live-action Spider-Verse, to which he responded, “Yes.” When it was put to him that it would be a “fresh reboot,” the executive once again replied with a brief, “Yes.”
A recurring issue with the movies listed above was the involvement of producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach. Depending on how Spider-Noir is received later this year, it’s easy to imagine Phil Lord and Christopher Miller being tasked with hitting the reset button on the franchise.
Rothman also commented briefly on the long wait for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, noting, “The scarcity has value. You’ve got to make the audience miss you.”
He added, “I’ll just tell you this. There are two people about whom I would say this, and maybe more if I think about it, but these are two that come to the top of my mind: never bet against Jim Cameron and never bet against Kevin Feige. He knows what he’s doing.”
Pushed to weigh in on Marvel Studios’ recent struggles, Rothman said, “They’ve engaged course correction. Less television. I think it was the television and the elaborateness of that interconnection that made you have to be so inside, or else you felt excluded. And that was a mandate that [Feige] was given by a prior administration at Disney.”
“He’s a good corporate soldier. So he did what he was asked to do,” Rothman noted. “But I think he knows very well that now, a degree less will be more, and it’ll be much more. Have no worries for Avengers: Doomsday, guys.”
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings helmer Destin Daniel Cretton directs Spider-Man: Brand New Day from a script by returning Spider-Man franchise writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers.
Tom Holland plays Spider-Man in a cast that also includes Jon Bernthal (The Punisher), Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk), Zendaya (MJ), Sadie Sink, Michael Mando (The Scorpion), Tramell Tillman, Marvin Jones III (Tombstone), Jacob Batalon (Ned Leeds), and Liza Colón-Zayas. Avengers: Doomsday star Florence Pugh is expected to reprise her Thunderbolts* role as Yelena Belova.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day will be released in theaters on July 31, 2026.