Sony was seriously thriving in 2018 and they can thank much of their success to the universe home to one friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Between Venom and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the studio scored $1.2 billion in worldwide box office earnings and an Oscar for Best Animated Feature for the latter.
Sony’s plan to keep the Spider-Verse rolling is the clear cut next move but turns out the studio is playing the long game. Sony Pictures execs Tony Vinciquerra and Mike Hopkins recently told Variety they already have the next seven or eight years laid out regarding what’s coming next for their newly established Spider-Verse on both the big screen but on television as well.
There is already a sequel for Venom in the works and another Spider-Verse spinoff starring anti-hero Morbius is currently being filmed, both assumed to hit theaters in 2020. There have also been talks movies for the Marvel characters Nightwatch, Silk, Silver Sable and Black Cat are being developed by Sony, though they seem to be in early development.
On the animation end, the wildly popular Into the Spider-Verse is already happening, along with a female-fronted spinoff starring Spider-Gwen. Considering all the spider-heroes introduced in the critically-acclaimed movie such as Peni Parker, Spider-Ham and Spider-Man Noir, there are tons of possibilities for the franchise to continue here as well.
With the Disney/Fox merger closing next week, Sony will soon be the only rival studio with rights to Marvel characters. Warner Bros has also started to find its own success with DCEU adaptations, such as Aquaman. Remaining competitive is likely futile considering the impact this deal is likely to have on the media industry as a whole.
In the interview, the executives teased a large volume of content from the Spider-Verse coming our way after the pair of Marvel successes from last year gave them the confidence to pursue this ongoing project. The same will go for plans to adapt characters from the Spider-Verse to a variety of television shows, as Warner Bros has done with Gotham, Netflix with Daredevil, FOX with The Gifted and ABC with Agents of SHIELD.
Luckily for Sony, there are tons of interesting characters, with diverse stories that have graced Spider-Man comics, that doesn’t necessarily need to star the masked web-shooter also known as Peter Parker in order for their stories to work. There’s quite a bit of curiosity for lesser-known characters in the comic book genre among the masses so it just might work. Just look at the recent success of Captain Marvel on screen – her origin wasn’t exactly common knowledge beforehand and the film's crushing it at the box office.
It’s an exciting time to be a Spider-Man fan as Sony makes it a mission to develop more movies and television shows centered around the various characters in the Spider-Verse.
