You won't have to look far to find a Marvel movie to talk about. Thanks to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, comic book characters are more relevant than ever. Everybody wants a piece of the action, with other studios attempting to follow in the MCU's footsteps.
Ironically, some of those studios have attempted to do so with Marvel characters too. It's important to remember that Marvel Studios doesn't own the film rights to all of the Marvel Comics characters and thus some of them currently belong to other studios. You won't find a bigger example of that than Spider-Man, who is currently under the Sony Pictures umbrella. The good news is that Sony reached a deal with Marvel that allows him to cross over into the MCU.
The same unfortunately can't be said for the other Spider-Man characters, as the studio attempted to launch its own shared universe of Spidey characters. Although some films in that franchise were successful, not a single one of them received primarily positive reviews and half of them bombed at the box office. And yet, there is still an audience for them, as two recent ones have found new life on Netflix.
Kraven the Hunter and Venom 3 enjoy strong performances on Netflix
Kraven the Hunter may have been the biggest box office disaster of 2024 but the film has found new life on Netflix, immediately catapulting itself straight to the No. 1 spot on its day of release. It ended up becoming the second most-watched movie on the platform on its week of release (behind Netflix original movie The Electric State) and only fell to third in its second week (outperforming The Electric State this time around). That's impressive - especially for a movie that underperformed so significantly in theaters.
What's also impressive is that fellow Sony Spider-Man Universe movie Venom: The Last Dance made its streaming debut shortly before that and also instantly found itself topping the daily Netflix Top 10 Movies chart. It also made itself at home in the No. 1 spot for the Weekly Top 10 chart and remained in the Top 10 for two more weeks, actually holding the 10 position on the week of Kraven's debut.
Granted, Venom 3 was a major box office success so it's not too surprising that it ended up performing so well on Netflix - especially when you take into account how popular the trilogy of Tom Hardy-led movies are. But given that critics regarded it as the worst of the three Venom films (although audiences might disagree with that decision), it's a testament to its popularity that it could still top the charts with a 40% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
Kraven scored just 15% on Rotten Tomatoes so, again, its performance on Netflix might come as a surprise to the general reader. But, like Venom 3, it has a much higher audience score, with the PopcornMeter giving it a 73% score. Clearly it wasn't popular enough with audiences to get them to the silver screen, but the performance of the film on Netflix shows that there is still value - and an audience - for these movies. Even if they aren't willing to go out to the theaters to see them, they will still consume them at home, even if it is out-of-curiosity.
This isn't the first time that this has happened with the Sony Marvel movies. Madame Web arrived in movie theaters at the beginning of 2024 and underperformed significantly, too. Flash forward a few months and it is topping the Netflix Top 10 too. Similarly, 2022's Morbius didn't enjoy the box office success that Sony was hoping for, but it too found a second life on Netflix when it made its streaming debut, also placing in the Top 10.
Sony Pictures' Universe of Spider-Man Characters may have been retired for now, but it has amassed quite the legacy in its few years of existence. Granted, at least half of the six live-action movies are considered among the worst superhero movies ever made, but there is clearly value in these movies for some viewers. Whether that's just down to curioisity or not, the audience is there (at home, at least) and it goes to show you that not every movie has to succeed at the box office to truly succeed.