Kraven the Hunter marks the end of Sony’s strange experiment – creating a Spider-Man film universe without Spider-Man.

The Poison The trilogy starring Tom Hardy is the only success story to emerge from Sony’s cinematic universe Poison The sequel made less money at the box office than its predecessor and faltered Venom: The Last Dance.

Kraven (starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson) debuted with a mediocre 15% on Rotten Tomatoes, in the same range as the much-derided film Madam Web (11%) And Morbius (15%).

Online commenters have posted memes celebrating the death of Sony’s ill-fated experiment.

Kraven the Hunter marks the latest attempt to turn Sony’s Spider-Man universe into a popular franchise.

Turns out that’s hard to do without Spider-Man.

What is Sony’s Spider-Man Universe?

Sony’s Spider-Man Universe was Sony’s attempt to continue the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) by creating its own interconnected superhero film franchise.

The universe was populated by Spider-Man’s villains and allies, but not the web-slinger himself.

It might seem strange to name a franchise after Spider-Man and never have him appear, but everything in the Sony universe has been entertainingly chaotic from the start.

Sony’s Spider-Man universe was launched in 2017 as “Sony’s Marvel Universe” and was later changed to “Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters,” creating the unfortunate acronym “SPUMC.”

SPUMC never became as well-known as the MCU (perhaps for good reason) and the project was renamed “Sony’s Spider-Man Universe” in 2021.

Although Sony technically owns the film rights to Spider-Man, the studio had reached an agreement with Marvel Studios in 2015 that allowed Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland) into the MCU, which helped boost Marvel’s box office success.

Sony still had the film rights to several Spider-Man villains and supporting characters, so they set to work building their own universe.

Why does Sony own the rights to the Spider-Man movie?

In 1999, in a moment of financial desperation, Marvel sold the Spider-Man Film rights to Sony Pictures long before superhero films became big business.

Sony successfully turned Spider-Man into a blockbuster hit with Sam Raimis Spider-Man trilogy that started the superhero movie trend that would lead to the rise of the MCU.

Sony’s Spider-Man agreement with Marvel included a condition requiring the studio to begin producing a dedicated Spider-Man film approximately every five years, otherwise the film rights would revert to Marvel.

So just five years later Spider Man 3 (2007), Sony rebooted the character The Amazing Spider-Man (2012). The failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, However, this led to the Marvel-Sony deal, which saw Spider-Man enter the MCU and Sony create a parallel universe.

A report from The Wrap paints a bleak picture of Sony’s Spider-Man universe, claiming the studio poured $465 million into a series of films that simply didn’t resonate with viewers.

“The biggest problem with Sony’s Spider-Man spinoffs seems to be the lack of quality control,” a Sony insider told The Wrap.

“The films just aren’t good.”

Sony’s Spider-Man universe was (somehow) connected to the MCU

As the MCU’s recent struggles have shown, it’s difficult to sustain a cinematic universe over multiple years; Viewers can easily lose interest or become fatigued as layers of plot build up through interconnected films and television shows.

It was never clear to the casual viewer that the Sony Spider-Man universe and the MCU were separate franchises that occasionally overlapped; At times, both studios seemed unsure about how the two universes should collide.

Sony’s Spider-Man universe often dropped hints that it was loosely connected to the MCU through convoluted post-credits sequences, but the connection seemed uncertain.

To add to the confusion, Marvel reintroduced many of the characters from Sony’s predecessor Spider-Man films too Spider-Man: No Way Home for nostalgia reasons (like Doc Ock and Green Goblin), but these characters were not part of Sony’s Spider-Man universe.

Only one character from the Sony Spider-Man universe – Tom Hardy’s Venom – appeared in an official MCU post-credits sequence, but Marvel didn’t follow through on the connection.

It didn’t help that Sony introduced an explicit MCU connection in the post-credits scenes of Morbiuswhich was ruthlessly mocked by the internet and became a popular meme that people didn’t want to look at Morbius was part of the joke.

Sony followed Morbius with another meme hit, Madam Webwhich was lampooned from the first trailer and introduced the immortal line: “He was in the Amazon with my mother when she was researching spiders shortly before she died.”

Madam Web It stars extremely obscure comic book characters who have a vague connection to Spider-Man – it ends with the villain, who looks a lot like Spider-Man, being defeated through product placement.

It’s a strange film that really pleased the internet.

The Sony universe couldn’t stand entirely on its own – it attached itself to Marvel like a symbiote, but ultimately messed up the multiverse and confused fans.

Luckily, Sony already has an incredibly successful and well-reviewed product Spider-Man Franchise in the form of the animated film Spider-Verse Movies that focus on Miles Morales.

The Spider-Verse is set to continue with the upcoming sequel Beyond the Spider-Verse, and the spin-off Spider Noir.

Funnily enough, Sony’s Spider-Verse Films are not part of Sony’s Spider-Man universe (a connection was hinted at the end of the first film). Poison film, but never followed up).

Now Kraven the Hunter, a villain distinguished by his all-consuming pursuit of Spider-Man as prey, has been introduced as an animal-loving anti-hero who has no connection to Spider-Man.

Kraven’s solo film marks the end of Sony’s strange franchise, a cinematic universe that couldn’t quite decide what it really was, what timeline it was set in or whether Spider-Man would ever appear.

It was all very confusing, but thankfully it’s over.

However, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will return in the upcoming MCU film Spider Man 4which arrives on July 24, 2026.

MORE FROM FORBES

ForbesThe beautiful disaster of “Madame Web,” explainedFrom Dani Di PlacidoForbesVenom 3: The Last Dance’s Chaotic Ending ExplainedFrom Dani Di PlacidoForbesHow “Wicked” relates to “The Wizard of Oz.”From Dani Di PlacidoForbesThe Grinch “Knee Surgery Tomorrow” meme, explainedFrom Dani Di Placido