Sony Pictures CEO Says ‘Madame Web’ Flopped ‘Because the Press Crucified It’: Our Marvel Movies ‘Are Not Terrible Films. They Were Destroyed by Critics’

Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra recently told the Los Angeles Times that “Kraven the Hunter” is “probably the worst launch we had” in the nearly eight years he’s been at the studio, adding: “I still don’t understand, because the film is not a bad film.”

“Kraven” opened in theaters Dec. 13 to a paltry $11 million, the lowest debut yet for a Sony-released Marvel movie. The movie’s current domestic box office total stands at just $18 million, while its global haul is $43 million. These are more or less catastrophic results for a superhero movie and cap off a lackluster year for Sony comic book movies after “Madame Web” flopped with $100 million worldwide and “Venom: The Last Dance” became the franchise’s lowest-grossing entry.

“Let’s just touch on ‘Madame Web’ for a moment,” Vinciquerra said. “‘Madame Web’ underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it. It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided that they didn’t want us making these films out of ‘Kraven’ and ‘Madame Web,’ and the critics just destroyed them. They also did it with ‘Venom,’ but the audience loved ‘Venom’ and made ‘Venom’ a massive hit. These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason.”

The critics’ aversion to Sony’s Marvel movies is one reason Vinciquerra thinks the studio needs to “rethink” how it moves forward with its Spider-Man universe tentpoles.

“It’s snake-bitten. If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is,” he told the LA Times.

In addition to “Madame Web” and “Kraven,” Sony also earned negative reviews and bad box office with its Jared Leto-starring “Morbius” movie. Sony insiders acknowledged to Variety earlier this month that “Kraven,” “Madame Web” and “Morbius” were creative and critical duds (even if they also insist that “Morbius,” which made $167.4 million globally, did turn a profit). Moving forward, they said, the studio will need to be more discerning about which — if any — of the studio’s stable of Spider-Man characters should be elevated into their own movie franchise.

Sony is currently working with Disney’s Marvel Studios on a fourth “Spider-Man” movie set to star Tom Holland. Head over to the Los Angeles Times’ website to read Vinciquerra’s latest profile in its entirety.