As a seasoned moviegoer who’s seen more flops than blockbusters, I can’t help but chuckle at the Sony Pictures saga. The Spider-Verse has been quite the rollercoaster ride, with its ups (Venom) and downs (Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter).
2024 proved to be quite an exciting year for cinema. For Disney, it turned out to be a successful one as three out of the top four highest-grossing films globally were their productions. Conversely, Sony had a less fortunate run. While “Venom: The Last Dance” was a hit, the other two movies in Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Verse, namely “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter”, turned out to be among the biggest box office flops of the year.
Tony Vinciquerra, who is stepping down as Sony Pictures CEO at year’s end, has spoken to the L.A. Times about his tenure. While he generally feels content with his seven-and-a-half-year stint as studio head, he acknowledges there have been some mistakes made along the way. However, contrary to some reports, he claims that “Kraven the Hunter” was not one of those errors.
The majority of our outcomes have been exceptionally positive, but unfortunately, our recent release, ‘Kraven the Hunter’, and my most recent premiere, haven’t fared as well as we had hoped. This is surprising to me, considering that the movie itself isn’t poor in quality. I’m still struggling to comprehend why it didn’t resonate with audiences as expected.
It’s clear that many people would likely take issue with that statement, given that “Kraven the Hunter” has a 15% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and hasn’t managed to gross over $50 million at the global box office after being in theaters for more than two weekends. This puts it in a category not too far from “Madame Web”, but “Kraven” will need to make an effort to reach the $100 million that “Web” earned, which it currently falls short of.
Furthermore, Vinciquerra is convinced that Madame Web can be categorized as “not bad” based on both the box office performance and critical reception. However, the imminent ex-CEO attributes the film’s poor standing to critics, claiming they were responsible for its downfall, a point he finds difficult to understand himself. He went on…
Let’s briefly discuss Madame Web. The movie didn’t do well in theaters due to harsh criticism from the media. However, it performed well on Netflix. It seems that the media had a dislike towards films like Kraven and Madame Web, causing them to be heavily criticized. This also happened with Venom, but the audience adored Venom and made it a huge success despite the negative reviews. These movies are not terrible; they simply faced harsh criticism from the press for some reason.
In a somewhat unflattering capacity as a critic, I find myself disagreeing with this concept. While my review for TopMob’s “Madam Web” may have been more charitable than others, I still believe the film was poorly executed in my viewpoint. Critics were not unjustifiably harsh; instead, they accurately reflected the films’ subpar quality. The success of “Madame Web” on Netflix could be attributed to viewers being curious about how bad the movie was without having to spend money on a ticket.
The idea that the movie was better than its reviews and only flopped because of critics is silly. As proof, you don’t have to look any further than Tony Vinciquerra’s own reference to the Spider-Verse movies that were hits, the Venom films.
Indeed, like many other critics, I wasn’t a fan of the Venom film series (though not as much as some others like Madame Web or Kraven), but it seems that audiences didn’t heed this criticism. Instead, they flocked to the movies, ensuring the entire trilogy became box office successes. It’s fascinating how often films receive negative reviews from critics but still manage to draw in massive crowds and rake in huge sums of money. It appears that reviews don’t necessarily determine a movie’s commercial success.
In my humble opinion as a film critic, it appears that “Kraven the Hunter” will mark the conclusion of Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff series known as the Spider-Verse. The departing CEO of Sony seems to concur with this decision, although his reasoning stems from a belief that none of the current franchise films could potentially thrive, regardless of their quality. He stated…
It seems to me that we should consider a different approach, as the current one has proven to be vulnerable and likely to meet with destruction, regardless of its quality.
Most people might concur that a fresh perspective on the franchise is needed, although there may be some disagreement about the specific reasons behind it.
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2024-12-27 00:08