Is Kraven the Hunter the last chance for Sony's superhero universe?

It's fair to say that, more than any time in the last five or six years, Sony's superhero universe is in a state of flux as we look ahead to Kraven the Hunter's upcoming debut in cinemas. Thanks to its ownership of Spider-Man — though the webslinger himself is on loan to Marvel Studios — Sony has managed to assemble something of a collage of comic book stories.

But now, things are changing. With the release of Venom: The Last Dance in October, Tom Hardy has – as far as we know – said a final goodbye to the dual roles of journalist Eddie Brock and his alien symbiote BFF. The Venom franchise has been the solid core at the heart of the wide-ranging plan once known by the unfortunate acronym SPUMC – the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters.

Now, though, that core has been jettisoned so that Tom Hardy can try a different funny voice for a little while. We're left with a few scraps of failed movies and whatever Kraven turns out to be. So actually, all eyes are on the hunter.

If Kraven flounders, then it's difficult to imagine that the SPUMC – that really is a terrible acronym – has any sort of a future. Let's take a look at its movies other than Venom thus far.

First, there was Morbius in 2022, which starred Jared Leto in the titular role as a scientist who becomes a vampire after trying to cure himself of a blood disease. To say it was a terrible movie would be to do a sad injustice to other turkeys. Morbius was a titanic-level stinker.

Read more: The film that flopped twice: What happened to Morbius? (EuroNews, 4 min read)

Visually, it existed entirely in a snot-coloured world of greys and greens, while Leto's performance was so tedious as to induce amnesia in anybody watching. Fortunately for us all, no one did watch it. Even an irony-driven campaign of online affection failed to goose its disappointing haul of $167m (£132m) at the worldwide box office.

Morbius, though, was a metaphorical walk in the park for Sony compared to the antipathy that greeted Madame Web — the first of three SPUMC movies in 2024, released in February.

Dakota Johnson played the title character in this 2003-set origin story, which did earn some hilarity points by featuring a subplot in which Emma Roberts played a version of Mary Parker, pregnant with a child nobody was legally allowed to name.

Read more: Madame Web is beyond abysmal – it’s the most entertaining superhero film in ages (The Independent, 4 min read)

Madame Web achieved truly vicious reviews, though there were some nods towards the idea of its disordered plotting and bizarre line readings transforming it into some sort of cult classic. At the box office, it suffered an even worse fate than Morbius, earning just $101m (£80m) worldwide.

Both of these movies concluded with over-optimistic teases for a sequel. Morbius introduced Michael Keaton's take on the villain Vulture – first seen in Spider-Man: Homecoming – in a nod towards a future movie outing for a version of the Sinister Six. Madame Web, meanwhile, concluded with the title character set up as a mentor for a trio of future Spider-Women.

Neither of those movies seems particularly likely to spawn a sequel, though there are still noises about the Sinister Six being made on occasion. Only Venom has been able to emerge as any sort of box office success, though each film in the franchise has made less than its predecessor. Venom: The Last Dance is currently sat at only just over half the gross of the first Venom.

That means all eyes must turn to Kraven. Aaron Taylor-Johnson is playing the fan-favourite Spidey villain, who has long been mooted as a potential on-screen foe for Peter Parker. This film appears to frame Kraven as something of an antihero, though he's notably fighting back against the influence of his crime lord father – played by Russell Crowe with a truly ludicrous Russian accent.

Read more: Kraven the Hunter will 'surprise the hell' out of fans, says director J.C. Chandor (BANG Showbiz, 2 min read)

Kraven fully embraces an R-rating for the first time in the SPUMC, though it will have the same 15 certificate in the UK as the previous films in the series.

This will allow it to be entirely unchained in terms of violence, establishing Kraven as a brutal character and hoping to follow in the footsteps of the first Joker and the Deadpool movies at the box office. When one of the highest-grossing movies of the year is an R-rated superhero film, it's not to be sniffed at.

The success or failure of Kraven will likely shape the entire future of the SPUMC — as I will keep calling it until someone tells me to stop. There's a Sony-Marvel project dated for July 2025, but it's not clear right now what that will be. Tom Holland's return for Spider-Man 4 is coming in 2026, so the July movie must be related to SPUMC, if anything is going to meet that release date.

Read more: Tom Holland Has Just Revealed When Spider-Man 4 Will Start Filming (HuffPost, 1 min read)

But there doesn't seem to be anything in the pipeline as things stand. If Kraven proves to be a hit, then Sinister Six might finally get motoring, with the new jewel in the SPUMC crown at its heart. But if Kraven joins the ranks of Morbius and Madame Web, it could be farewell to this bizarre cinematic universe for good. Will anybody truly mourn it?

Kraven the Hunter is in UK cinemas from 13 December.