With 2025 officially upon us, excitement for some of this year's biggest releases is at an all-time high. Yes, it's expected to be a major year for the box office, with big properties making their presences felt on the silver screen. That also includes some returning Hollywood heavyweights.
Among the biggest films this year are James Gunn's Superman, Jurassic World Rebirth, Predator: Badlands, Wicked: For Good, and so much more. Yes, that's barely scratching the surface of what we can expect from the cinematic landscape this year, and that doesn't even include the big Marvel movies - which have become an annual tentpole for the movie industry.
Marvel characters always draw audiences and it's safe to say that this year will be no different, with some major characters set to either return or debut on the big screen. That said, one mysterious Marvel movie will not be making its presence felt on moviegoers this year in spite of a once-planned 2025 release.
Sony pulls untitled Marvel movie from release calendar
Sony Pictures has officially updated its release calendar for 2025 to move some titles around and, in doing so, have removed an untitled Marvel movie altogether. As reported by Screen Rant, the film was originally planned for a release date of June 27, 2025 but it has been removed from the studio's slate entirely.
This is yet another troubling sign that Sony's Spider-Man Universe (formerly known as the Sony Pictures Universe of Spider-Man Characters) has come to an end. The film series launched with Venom in 2018 to great success (including $800 million in box office takings) and a mixed response, which was more than enough to produce some sequels and spinoffs. Although the Venom movies remained box office draws, each one drew considerably less money than the previous one and their critical reputations got worse. But the biggest problem with the franchise was that it couldn't produce a live-action success story outside of that trilogy.
Morbius infamously released in 2022 to an underwhelming box office performance and a negative response (which included it becoming one of the most memed movies ever) while Madame Web suffered a similar, worse fate in 2024 when it too was negatively received, widely-memed and it outright failed at the box office. Fans still held out hope that December's Kraven the Hunter could reverse the franchise's fortune, but it struggled even more so, earning one of the lowest box office returns in superhero movie history and once again receiving overwhelmingly negative reviews.
Since the film's failure, reports have claimed that Sony has decided to either rest or end its Spider-Verse. With the Venom trilogy now complete, Spider-Man himself in Marvel Studios' MCU, and the animated Spider-Verse movies doing extremely well at the box office, there just isn't any reason to keep producing these Spidey villain movies that fans just aren't invested in. And that could be why the studio has pulled the untitled Marvel movie that was set for release this summer from its schedule.
It's not surprising that Sony removed the project from the calendar given that it hadn't announced any cast or creative team for it (or even revealed what it was to audiences). But the failure of Kraven the Hunter made its removal a certainty; it was simply a matter of when the studio would actually do it. It doesn't outright confirm the end of the Sony Spider-Verse (there are rumors of an inevitable reboot) but it does confirm the end of its current era at least.
If you're hoping to see Marvel characters on the big screen this year, you can still see plenty of them in Marvel Studios' Marvel Cinematic Universe releases Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps.