Sony Pictures has been bringing us a multitude of Spider-Man-based movies for decades. From the classic days of Tobey Maguire's Spidey movies to the modern Marvel Cinematic Universe Tom Holland-led Spidey movies in which they collaborate with Marvel Studios, there have been plenty of the webslinger's adventures that have come our way courtesy of Sony. And that's because they own the character's movie rights... along with all of his supporting characters.
That meant that, in between the Spider-Man movies, we also get plenty of Spidey offshoots starring some of his most notorious villains. Venom was the most famous of the pack, but there were also some lesser-known and yet very infamous releases over the past few years. The failures of some of the latter ultimately resulted in the end of that franchise. With that in mind, a new report claiming that another Spider-Man offshoot is no longer moving forward comes as no surprise - even if it is a shame.
Sony cancels Spider-Woman movie, according to reports
It sounds like the Spider-Woman will not be swinging her way to the big screen in the near-future. According to established industry insider Daniel Richtman (a.k.a. DanielRPK), the heavily-rumored movie, which was expected to be directed by Olivia Wilde, is officially dead at Sony - ending a long wait for what could have been a very unique movie.
It shouldn't come as a surprise as it had been years since there were any major developments. Most of the major elements were rumors anyway, other than the fact that Wilde did confirm back in 2022 that she was working on a secret Marvel project. But after the rise and fall of Sony Pictures' Universe of Spider-Man Characters (or, as it was retitled: The Sony Spider-Verse), it was clear that the vast majority of the planned titles weren't going to make it to the screen.
At this point, it's still unclear as to whether the version of Spider-Woman featured in the film would have been Jessica Drew or Jessica Carpenter, but fan theories did favor the former iteration - due to the fact that she's somewhat more well-known among comic book fans.
The Spider-Man spinoff universe continues to crumble
The Sony Spider-Verse movies weren't critical darlings, but the best of them had some charm. You know I'm talking about the Venom movies, with the first one in particular being a fan-favorite (despite critics not being fans of it). It was also super successful, spwaning two sequels that unfortunately didn't resonate with fans or critics. But still, successful enough to show that there was life in the Spider-Verse beyond Spider-Man himself.
But that life would be squandered in the other Spider-Verse movies, as Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter all underperformed at the box office, were ravaged by critics, and became the subjects of many, many memes because of how "bad" they were. The third of the three - Kraven - outright flopped despite being arguably the most well-known of the three characters. That showed Sony what they wouldn't hear - that fans were fed up of the bad Spider-Man offshoots, especially as the sheer idea of building a Spider-Man Universe without Spider-Man himself was questionable at best.
While Spidey was off helping the Avengers as part of the MCU, Sony's plan to establish a shared universe of his own villains and heroes without him just wasn't working - especially as it was revealed that some of these Spider-Verse movies didn't even take place in the same universe. And it would have continued if the films hadn't failed at the box office. We did, after all, get three Venom movies that weren't really designed to set up much beyond their own respective stories.
Right now, the future of Sony's Spider-Verse looks very different. Reports say that the studio won't be afraid of sharing more characters with Marvel Studios in the foreseeable future now, meaning that we could actually see Tom Holland's Spider-Man go up against some of the webslinger's own enemies in the MCU. However, Sony is now working on Spider-Noir - a detective series starring Nicolas Cage as an older Spider-Man (the Ben Reilly incarnation) who also happens to be a private investigator in 1930s New York. It's also focusing on the extremely successful animated Spider-Verse movie saga, developing the third installment for a 2027 release.