Six years after “Amazing Spider-Man 2” stumbled, Sony’s new Marvel universe gets a terrible new name

Six years ago, The Incredible Spider-Man 2 It underperformed and temporarily ended Sony’s hopes for a MCU-like Spidey franchise.

Yesterday we received the news that Sony has decided on a new name for its official universe / franchise / brand of Spider-Man and the Marvel movies related to Spider-Man. Following Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: away from home, which are technically part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Poison, Sony is on the verge of what they were looking for six years ago on this day. They may only get their own Marvel Cinematic Universe, one that may or may not be freely included in Disney
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Current MCU. That is the good news. The bad news is that the name is, frankly, a bit terrible. Rather than referring to this movie collection as “The Spider-Verse” or perhaps not giving it a name, the Sony Spidey image collection will be called, uh, Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters.

But first, a history lesson …

Today, May 2, is the sixth anniversary of the launch of The Incredible Spider-Man 2. The second of Andrew Garfield / Marc Webb Peter Parker’s two passion works opened amid mixed criticism of a $ 93 million domestic release, after a slow overseas release that began on April 17. The reception of the film is complicated. It crashed and burned in North America, earning just $ 202 million domestically compared to $ 262 million. Amazing Spider-Man and the $ 336- $ 403 million cumes (without inflation) from the previous trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. It performed a little better than the last Amazing Spider-Man overseas movie, earning $ 506 million compared to its predecessor’s $ 496 million cume of 2012. The overall ending of $ 709 million was considered a disappointment, both due to a $ 255 million budget and (more importantly) in terms of plans for a specific Sony universe of Spider-Man movies and spin-offs.

While the film itself was primarily independent, save for an unnecessary subplot involving Peter’s dead parents and a half-credit taunt for potential Six claims Going forward, studio and marketing expectations shaped the film as a backdoor pilot for a whole new world of Spider-Man heroes and villains. Furthermore, the film pleased the staunch fan base by killing its female lead (Gwen Stacey from Emma Stone) who also removed both the most popular character from the new franchise and the most unique element of the new series (the romantic chemistry between Garfield and Stone). Unfortunately, when the film encountered mediocre reviews and surprisingly poor domestic legs, it meant that A) the audience was not enthusiastic about The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and B) the audience was certainly not enthusiastic about various derived films (Poison, a young spy movie by Aunt May, etc.).

Six years later, Sony seems to have discovered the gold at the end of the rainbow they were chasing with the convicted Marc Webb. Spiderman restart. Spider-Man: Homecoming, featuring Tom Holland as a young Peter Parker playing Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man and the rest of the MCU, it garnered solid reviews and $ 334 million domestically / $ 881 million worldwide with a budget of $ 175 million, which is frankly what Amazing Spider-Man Films should have cost. That is one reason why Amazing Spider-Man 2 it was a “failure” in $ 709 million but the budgeted $ 170 million Captain America: The Winter Soldier It was a “box office hit” at $ 714 million in the same year. Spider-Man: away from home was sold as an epilogue to Avengers Endgame and earned $ 390 million / $ 1,128 billion with a budget of $ 165 million, approving Skyfall ($ 1,108 billion) as Sony’s largest global fundraiser.

More importantly, Tom Hardy Poison He overcame years of layoff to make a $ 80 million national debut on his way to $ 214 million national, $ 279 million in China and $ 854 million worldwide on a budget of just $ 90 million. Jared Leto Morbid It was supposed to open in July, but will now debut in March of next year. Oh, and Sony is excited Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse He brought Miles Morales into the fold, garnered rave reviews, earned $ 190 million domestically / $ 375 million worldwide (ideal for a superhero), and won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film raising $ 1.2 billion. Pixar Incredibles 2. A sequel is now scheduled for October 23, 2022. Poison: Let There Be Carnage (starring Woody Harrelson as Carnage) will now open on June 25, 2021.

So the good news is that Sony can get the “Spider-Man cinematic universe” they’ve been chasing for years. The bad news is that they have decided on an inexplicably terrible title for their franchise / brand. To be fair, a dumb name for a cinematic universe isn’t going to be a deciding factor if movies work on a case-by-case basis. Shock Shock, Reuben FleischerThe poison turned out to be a completely independent superhero origin story with just a standard medium credit sequel, so it seems like Sony is learning Iron Man lesson (happy 12th birthday to first Iron Man, which opened on May 2, 2008) of making independent films that work on their own terms. However, why the hell didn’t they just call this the “spider verse” is beyond me. That’s what we’ve all been calling for the past year or two anyway.

It gets off the tongue and reminds people of one of the best superhero movies ever made. The “Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters “feels like a name created by a Algorithm intended to obstruct headlines and never be spoken to by anyone outside of the industry or the media. I don’t think people are going to use “SPUMC” either. How Iron Man He taught us 12 years ago, a salad of ridiculous words (Homeland Strategic Intervention, Compliance and Logistics Division) only works when it can be shortened to something agile (S.H.I.E.L.D.). Yes, In the spider verse It was a unique franchise, and the Sony Marvel movies will not only be about Spider-Man, but calling it “The Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters” at least people would call it (unofficially) “Sony MCU.” Which, especially if Michael Keaton’s Vulture appears in MorbidIt is probably an accurate assessment.

This can only be a problem because Sony succeeded in launching four well received, commercially successful and (except for Poison) Well-reviewed Spider-Man or Spider-Man-ish comic book superhero movies. The agreement reached by Disney and Sony in early 2015 allowed for a new Spider-Man series within the MCU, while also making Andrew Garfield the George Lazenby of the series. Yes, Holland is Roger Moore compared to Sean Connery of Toby Maguire, and that’s not an insult to any of them. Even Poison shows that splits can work. A really dumb franchise name is A) mere trivia if the movie score and B) indicative of the type of executive over-thinking that resulted Amazing Spider-Man of a cheap “Twilight with cobwebs “at $ 235 million” Spidey does The beginning of batman“New version of Spiderman and forced Amazing Spider-Man 2 be a tailgate pilot to Six claims. Hopefully he’s just thinking about it too much.