Sony's Spider-Man Universe
Sony's Spider-Man Universe is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on a series of superhero films produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel Entertainment. Distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, the films are based on various Marvel Comics characters and properties associated with the character Spider-Man, who is not prominently featured in the franchise. Unlike other shared universes that establish crossovers between entries, the films in the SSU are loosely connected, with greater emphasis on standalone storytelling over interconnectivity.
Sony Pictures, which owns the film rights to Spider-Man, began developing an expanded universe featuring supporting characters from the Spider-Man films by December 2013. The studio planned to use The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to launch several spin-off films focused on Spider-Man villains from the comics, including a Venom film. After the relative critical and financial disappointment of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, these plans were abandoned, and in February 2015, Sony announced a deal to collaborate with Marvel Studios on future Spider-Man films and integrate the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This relationship produced Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home, and Spider-Man: No Way Home, while Sony separately re-developed Venom as a stand-alone film with its own fictional universe. Sony and Marvel Studios renegotiated their deal in 2019 to share the Spider-Man character between the MCU and their standalone Marvel-based films.
Venom was followed by Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Morbius, both of which have mid-credits scenes that feature elements from the multiverse concept to link the SSU with the MCU, while Sony's animated Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is also connected to the SSU. These were followed by Madame Web, Venom: The Last Dance, and Kraven the Hunter in 2024, which all feature additional characters related to Spider-Man in the comics. Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter received negative reviews from critics and were commercial failures, while the Venom films received mixed reviews and were commercially successful. The franchise has grossed over $2 billion worldwide. By the end of 2024, Sony stopped developing further films to focus on its other Spider-Man properties, such as the live-action Sony Pictures Television series Spider-Noir, which is set in the same shared universe.
Name
Sony officially announced their new shared universe—based on various Marvel Comics properties and characters commonly associated with Spider-Man—in May 2017, with the title "Sony's Marvel Universe". By August 2018, it was being referred to as "Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters" internally at the company. In March 2019, a Sony Pictures Entertainment presentation referred to the "Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters", and Sony later confirmed that this was the official name for its shared universe. The presentation applied the title to Marvel Studios' Spider-Man films and the animated Spider-Verse films as well as Sony's own live-action Marvel adaptations. The title was widely criticized, with commentators mocking its length compared to shorter franchise names like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe, as well as the acronym "SPUMC". James Whitbrook of io9 questioned why the term "Spider-Verse" was not being used. Columbia Pictures president Sanford Panitch stated that Sony did not want to refer to their shared universe as the "Spider-Verse" since it encompassed many characters separate from Spider-Man. Despite this, Sony announced in August 2021 that the franchise had been renamed "Sony's Spider-Man Universe".Development
Background
In January 2010, Sony announced that the Spider-Man film franchise would be rebooted after director Sam Raimi decided to no longer continue his version of the franchise. By March 2012, Sony was still interested in a spin-off film they had been developing centered on the character Venom, looking to capitalize on the release of the first reboot film, The Amazing Spider-Man. That June, producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach discussed Venom and The Amazing Spider-Man in reference to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how the different franchises set in that world crossed over with The Avengers. Tolmach stated, "Hopefully all these worlds will live together in peace someday." In December 2013, Sony revealed plans to use The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to establish their own expanded universe based on the Marvel properties the studio had the film rights to, including Venom. Arad and Tolmach would produce the films as part of a franchise brain trust that also included Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard, and The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 director Marc Webb. However, after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed and with Sony "under tremendous pressure to perform", the direction of the new shared universe was rethought.Following the November 2014 hacking of Sony's computers, emails between Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chairman Amy Pascal and president Doug Belgrad were released, stating that Sony was planning to "rejuvenate" the Spider-Man franchise by developing an animated comedy film with Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. Sony executives were set to discuss the project further at a January 2015 summit regarding several Spider-Man spin-off films. In February 2015, Sony, Disney and Marvel Studios announced a new partnership that would see the latter produce the next Spider-Man film for Sony, and integrate the character into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sony still planned to produce the spin-off films without Marvel's involvement, but these were believed to have been "scrapped" by November, with Sony instead focusing on its new reboot with Marvel. Discussing the animated film during that year, Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman said it would "co-exist" with the live-action Spider-Man films, though Sony stated it would "exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe." The animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is set in an alternate universe from the Marvel Spider-Man reboot, but introduces the comic-based concept of the "Spider-Verse" multiverse, in which different incarnations of Spider-Man can be brought together; Sony was excited by the possibility of crossovers between the live-action and animated films after seeing the quality of Into the Spider-Verse. In June 2022, Lord and Miller said that Sony intended for their Spider-Man Universe and the Spider-Verse films to connect to the MCU via the multiverse. In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel to Into the Spider-Verse, the character the Spot visits Mrs. Chen, during which Sony's Spider-Man Universe is referred to as "Earth-688".
Sony's shared universe
Venom was revived by Sony in March 2016, envisioned as a standalone film unrelated to Sony and Marvel's new Spider-Man films, which would launch its own franchise and shared universe. In May 2017, Sony confirmed that Venom was not considered a spin-off of any other film, and would officially begin its own shared universe. Sony was looking to build out this new universe gradually rather than rush in as they had previously tried with the Amazing Spider-Man spin-offs. In July, Columbia Pictures president Sanford Panitch explained that they were looking to "do what's the absolute best for each individual property. I just want to honor the original DNA." Because of this, Sony hoped that individual filmmakers would give each film its own distinct style rather than having a single person in charge of the universe, as with the MCU's Kevin Feige. The studio also wanted to avoid "conventional comic-book movies", with the intention of dealing in different genres such as horror or comedy, potential R-rated films, and even lower-than-usual budgets, depending on each project.By March 2018, Sony's executive vice president, Palak Patel, was overseeing all of the universe's films. In July, Vulture interviewed several creatives involved in the universe to try to alleviate the fears of some fans concerning Sony's plans. Jonathan Goldstein—co-writer of the first MCU Spider-Man film, Spider-Man: Homecoming —said the future of the universe would be decided by the success of Venom, and noted that other studios had struggled to replicate Marvel Studios' MCU success. Brian Michael Bendis, comic creator of many Marvel characters that Sony planned to add to its universe, consulted on Into the Spider-Verse and was aware of Sony's plans for its shared universe. He described them as "very cool. Fans wouldn't be annoyed with what they're doing." He added that MCU films such as Iron Man and Guardians of the Galaxy, which he was also involved in, were considered risks due to the lack of familiarity that general audiences had with those properties, but they both went on to be successful. He said this could also happen to lesser-known Spider-Man characters. In August, Sony was confirmed to have the rights to 900 Marvel Comics characters, and Panitch explained that "Spider-Man connects to a lot of the characters. There are villains, heroes, and antiheroes, and a lot are female characters, many of whom are bona fide, fully dimensionalized, and utterly unique. We feel there's no reason the Marvel characters shouldn't be able to embrace diversity." When asked whether Venom would act as the "common thread" throughout the shared universe, Sony said this was not necessarily the case as they wanted Venom to be standalone, but said Venom would have "key points of intersection" with other films.
Following the successful release of Venom, Pascal said some of Sony's "previously shelved plans" could now come to fruition, including a crossover based on the villainous Sinister Six team. In March 2019, Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Tony Vinciquerra said the "next seven or eight years" of the shared universe had been planned. There was some hesitancy within Sony to establish interconnection between its films in the shared universe after previous attempts fell through, but the studio ultimately opted to de-emphasize the interconnected nature of its films by telling self-contained stories focused on supporting characters related to Spider-Man. After the franchise's 2024 films Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter performed poorly at the box office, Sony was reported in December 2024 to no longer be developing further films for its franchise at that time, and was instead focusing on the MCU film Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the animated Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, and the SSU television series Spider-Noir. A subsequent Variety report noted that Sony had privately acknowledged that Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web, and fellow SSU film Morbius were creative and critical failures and that they needed to re-evaluate which Spider-Man characters were given their own film franchises. Variety stated that while Sony had not technically established an official shared universe because it did not connect their narratives, the studio was not likely to stop making films for other characters, such as Venom, which were successful.