In this era of cinematic universes and franchise filmmaking, some studios don’t learn lessons easily. Sony is no stranger to the occasional terrible film, but will they or their audience see the blood-red flags being waved in every direction by their latest effort?
Any mildly informed viewer can plot the course of the ongoing Sony Marvel experiment. They’ve given solo projects to two classic Spider-Man villains, Venom and Morbius. While the former was far from flawless, the recently releasedMorbiushas been savagedby critics and audiences. Unfortunately, studios are way past waiting to see if a movie succeeds before green lighting the next entry.
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Kraven the Hunteris setto be the fourth film in the Sony Spider-Man Universe (SSU) when it premieres early next year. The film is to be helmed byA Most Violent YearandTriple Frontierdirector J. C. Chandor. The title character was created in 1964 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko and has remained an iconic Spider-Man antagonist for almost sixty years. Sony has been trying to put Kraven into a variety of projects before settling on a solo film around six years ago. He will be portrayed byKick-AssandAge of Ultronstar Aaron Taylor-Johnson in his first big-screen appearance. Christopher Abbott ofGirlsfame andFace/Offstar Alessandro Nivolahave both been cast as villains. Little more is known about the film, but given the current state of Sony’s live-action Spider-Man efforts, faith is not high.
IgnoringtheAmazing Spider-Manfilms, because Sony certainly does, the SSU is currently only comprised of villain solo projects. Much has been made ofVenomand its sequel. They aren’t great films, but they do have a certain charm to them. Tom Hardy’s unhinged performance as Eddie Brock and his interplay with his symbiote was viewed by many as excellent character writing. Despite some boring action and rumors of tremendous studio editing, both films have ardent defenders. The second entry,Let There Be Carnage, brought fan-favorite monster Carnage to the screen, with extremely mixed results. Venom benefited from a few factors outside its control. Fans were awaiting a proper on-screen version of the iconic villain turned anti-hero and, despite the underwhelming results, many were happy to see the character in all his glory.Morbiushad no such luck.
The three SSU films each have different directors, there are five total screenwriters across the three films, and the crews vary wildly with very little overlap. And yet, each of the three films suffers from the same bad pacing, lack of originality, weak characters, terrible action scenes, and inconceivably bad editing. The three films feel like episodes of a bad anthology series, a dedicated fan could cut them together and convincingly create a cohesive movie. The problems have to be coming from higher than the director or writers. Everyone complains about the editing in these films, and they don’t just mean the bad and jarring cuts. Sony seems to be going straight for the throat withtheir Sinister Six movie conceptand breaking the individual films into whatever shape they need to fill to make that happen. There’s no blending of disparate worlds like inThe Avengers, these films need to be as similar as possible, and that strategy is falling apart fast.
There’s no way of knowingwhetherKraven the Hunterwill be any good before it comes out. The film has yet to drop a trailer, there’s very little to go off of at the moment. Unfortunately, the cinematic universe model shows its weaknesses when films start to blend together. IfMorbiusrepresents a pattern in the SSU, then it suggests thatKravenwill be another bland waste of decent source material. If it represents a downward trend in the quality of the films, thenKravencould be even worse. Sony’s efforts toward a cinematic universe haven’t had the courtesy to disappear like Universal’s Dark Universe. It’s clearly sticking around. Fans can only hope that the SSU andKraven the Huntercan learn from the mistakes of their predecessors, rather than repeating them.
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