Sony Pictures chief blames critics for Spider-Man spin-off failure

in an interview with Los Angeles Times Looking back on his seven years at the helm of Sony Pictures, outgoing CEO Tony Vinciquerra spoke about his successes as well as his disappointments during the studio’s tenure. This includes the last film to be released while he was still the boss: Kraven the Hunter.

The A Spider-Man villain spin-off Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, it was “probably the worst presentation in the 7 1/2 years (I’ve been at Sony) so it didn’t do very well, I still don’t get it because it’s not a bad movie ” he said.

The next question asked more about Vinciquerra Requirements –as well as another infamous, Spidey-adjacent 2024 issue: Madam Web.

“Let’s touch Madam Web for a moment,” he said. “Madam Web performed poorly in theaters as the press crucified it. It wasn’t a bad movie and it did great on Netflix.”

He continued, tending to blame the press Madam Webfailure etc. “For some reason, the press decided that they don’t want us to make these films Requirements and Madam Weband the critics simply destroyed them. And with that they did Poisonbut the audience loved it Poison and he did Poison a massive hit. These are not scary movies. They were simply destroyed by the critics in the media for some reason.”

(MorbiusReleased in 2022, not mentioned.)

In Rotten Tomatoes, Kraven the Hunter 15% of critics have a “Tomatometer” rating; movie fans rated it 73% on the “Popcornmeter” scale. Madam Web’s ratings are worse (11% from critics; 55% from fans); and most recently Poison movie, Poison: The Last Dancehad the highest approval among critics and audiences (41% and 81%).

Still, it doesn’t necessarily translate to box office gold, as positive as fans voting on Rotten Tomatoes might be. most recently, Kraven the HunterAs Vincikerra himself admitted, didn’t leave much of a mark at the checkout.

The outgoing CEO may not worry too much about it, but he certainly knows that all the “Spider man The ‘spin-off’ strategy that Sony embraced so enthusiastically in the beginning should be reconsidered in the future. He told the Los Angeles Times: “I think we have to rethink it because it was bitten by a snake.” “If we extinguish another, no matter how good or bad it is, it will be destroyed.”

Spiderman 4at least it’s on the horizon: Tom Holland returns as the web-slinger in the Dustin Daniel Cretton-directed film arriving on July 24, 2026.

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