What the hell is going on with Spider-Man?

Oh, Sony. Sony, Sony, Sony.

We get it, you’re excited that people like what you’re doing with Spider-Man. They hated Spider-Man 3, they grumbled when you rebooted Amazing Spider-Man, and they compared The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to Batman & Robin.

Things got so bad you were basically forced to take the massive gamble of a brand-share with Marvel, bringing the character into the MCU – a risk that paid off in a fairly massive way.

Tom Holland is the perfect Peter Parker, and his Civil War appearance was the best possible way to introduce him.

Next came Homecoming, arguably the greatest Spider-Man movie ever made – it’s certainly the only one to feature Iron Man. So, well done.

And there’s been more good news recently – the trailer for Venom has broken all sorts of records for you: it’s now the most-watched trailer for a Spider-Man related movie; including Spider-Man: Homecoming.

You’ve done the sensible thing and pulled Silver & Black from the release schedule. That movie was set to revolve around Silver Sable and Black Cat – two characters even Spider-Man fans don’t massively care about – and it was due to land in cinemas on 8 February 2019.

So, now that’s been sent straight to development hell, you can concentrate on Venom, then presumably a Parker resurrection in Avengers 4, before the Homecoming sequel, Spider-Man: Far From Home. That’s a brilliant plan.

We’re also pretty intrigued by the rumoured Silk spin-off, which was seeded in Homecoming. But that should definitely, definitely be it, for the foreseeable future.

Except, wait – our Spider-senses are tingling. There’s something on the horizon with the potential to tear the whole web down.

That’s right, it’s the Jared Leto vampire movie.

We get it, you’ve got Venom, a spin-off centred around a Spider-Man villain, starring a dude who played a Batman baddie, that’s tracking really well. So why not put another one into production?

Here’s why: even DC have started to chill with the advance-planning. Marvel seem to be taking things one film at a time at the moment. And then there’s you, announcing another random spin-off movie starring someone who half of fandom seems to hate right now.

Seriously, how about you wait and see how Venom does before you start putting contracts in front of super-intense actors who have a reputation for going method?

Like, is someone protecting Tom Holland? Do you have a security detail making sure Holland’s blood isn’t suddenly completely drained from his body by the lead singer of 30 Seconds To Mars? Jared Leto sent Margot Robbie a rat while they were making Suicide Squad, so who knows what he’s capable of!

While a Morbius movie isn’t necessarily a terrible idea, and even a Morbius movie starring Jared Leto isn’t the end of the world (he is an Oscar-winner, after all), let’s just remember your recent history with this franchise before Marvel came along to save the day.

It’s this sort of too-many-villains thinking that caused Spider-Man 3 to come crashing down. The overfocus on shared universes was a key element of what went wrong with Amazing Spider-Man 2 – which set up so many sequels and spin-offs, no-one stopped to make sure if the film they were actually making was worth watching.

So, yeah, maybe find whichever sensible executive it was who cancelled Silver & Black and run this project past them, see what they think of it. Because, now you’ve lost James Bond to MGM and Annapurna Pictures, Spider-Man is easily your most important franchise. You know, until you fix Ghostbusters. And Men In Black. And Hellboy.

What we’re saying is, you’ve got more than enough on your plate before you decide to launch a Morbius trilogy.

So, if it’s not too late, maybe Thanos-snap this one out of existence. Because with great power comes great responsibility, and your biggest responsibility right now is to protect the Spider-Man brand.

Read more
Spider-Man spin-off Silk in the pipeline at Sony
Jared Leto to star in ‘Spider-Man’ spinoff ‘Morbius’
Marvel deals with that sizeable mistake in the Venom trailer