The studio’s desire to capitalize on the superhero boom led to a series of tonal mismatches that left audiences confused rather than intrigued. “Venom” succeeded largely on Tom Hardy’s chaotic charm, but attempts to replicate that formula with “Morbius” and “Madame Web” resulted in films that seemed uncertain whether they were horror, action or comedy.
It wasn’t just that they are tonally confusing. Morbius and Madame Web were really bad movies. The writing for each was terrible, the effects were bad, the direction was bad, neither movie had any redeeming qualities. I love those characters, and I would love to see what Disney could do with them, but Sony was transparently making minimally viable products to keep the valuable IP rights.
That’s not to say Disney can’t make a bad product. But the worst parts if the MCU were far better than the best parts of the Venomverse.
My favourite part of Morbius, and I haven’t actually seen the film, was revealed on the Corridor Crew’s VFX Artist’s React. Some poor VFX bloke had modelled a construction site or underground site with a lot of detail. Then, when the scene was lit, it was made so dark, you couldn’t see any of the work that had been done.
I had to see it for myself, and then I made a gif of it so others don’t have to hunt the video down.
I couldn’t embed it, so here: https://ibb.co/tJQ6GTP
Nice! That last frame before the lighting shift is so wild to look at all the little details… Then blam! No background for you!
Sony was transparently making minimally viable products to keep the valuable IP rights.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the SSU movies are part of their contract with Marvel. It only applies to live-action Spider-Man films (in which Spidey is the main character).
Which means that they had no obligation to make these movies, but still chose to do so anyway. They are making these villain spin-offs because they want to, not because they have to.
Just the thought of Sony making completely unnecessary villain movies, not out of any contractual obligation, but because they genuinely believe that they can ride the coattails of the MCU…to me that’s too funny to pass up.
Which means that they had no obligation to make these movies, but still chose to do so anyway.
That’s what gets me, there was no need for these films other than Sony rooting around in the drawer to see if they had the rights to enough superheroes to create their own movie franchise. They didn’t just a bunch of third tier Spider-Man adjacent characters and a load of supervillains. However, they thought they that’d be good enough despite the supervillains (and most of the superheroes) needing Spider-Man as he’s the main draw.
I’d be interested in a breakdown of the box office for these films. I assume they didn’t loose money, partly because Morbius became a bit of a meme, buy I also doubt they made much either.
I’d be interested in a breakdown of the box office for these films.
Ask and ye shall receive.
- Venom (2018)
- Budget: $100-116 million
- Box office: $856,085,161
- Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)
- Budget: $110 million
- Box office: $506,863,592
- Morbius (2022)
- Budget: $75-83 million
- Box office:
$1 morbillion$167,460,961
- Madame Web (2024)
- Budget: $80 million
- Box office: $100,498,764
- Venom: The Last Dance (2024)
- Budget: $120 million
- Box office: $472,812,792
So, in total, Sony spent $485-509 million on all the films, and they have made a combined $2.1 billion.
The highest grossing SSU film was the first Venom movie, and they seem to have been chasing that high ever since. Their lowest-grossing movie (so far) is Madame Web.
So it appears that over time, the SSU movies have been making less and less money with each release (with the exception of Venom 3).
It’s a shame that none of them flopped as hard as they should have compared to the other garbage movies of recent year.
Even Madame Web could look green if you ignore that likely insane amount of marketing we all saw for it.
But Sony manages to just keep Morbin all over the place and doesn’t quite see the punishment for it so what do I know.
- Venom (2018)
Thanks for posting the budget and box office figures, does that include marketing at all? because that might throw a different light on it a fair bit …
Movie budgets usually don’t include the marketing costs, as that information is almost never revealed to the public. But to find out how much money a film would need to be profitable, a good guess is to multiply the budget by 2.5.
For example, a $100 million film would need to make at least $250 million to break even.
But this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, as no one can really be certain of the marketing budget.
EDIT: Typo.
