Sony Spider-Verse Strategy
How a historic deal led to a cinematic Spider-Man legacy
A wise Uncle Ben once said: “With great publishing rights comes great responsibility”.
Well maybe not, but if he did it would be very relevant for this topic…
For the most part, I believe Sony is fulfilling Ben Parker’s famous adage with their stewardship of the cinematic rights to Spider-Man, which they currently own, but in other ways there is untapped potential that Sony’s Spider-strategy isn’t currently considering.
Through more than twenty years of managing the Spider-Man IP, Sony has made iconic and successful movies based on the Spider-Man mythology. They’ve also made some unsuccessful, albeit very meme-able (shoutout to dancing emo Tobey and Morbius) Spider-movies in that same time span. Sony has been very adaptable, making various strategic pivots with the Spider-Man franchise, forging partnerships with other studios, and innovating in industry leading ways which has ultimately resulted in enriching the Spider-mythos.
As of 2023, the cinematic Spider-Verse is fragmented across different franchises: the Tom Holland incarnation of Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the animated Spider-Verse led by Miles Morales voiced by Shameik Moore, the Spider-Villain series kicked off by Tom Hardy’s Venom, and more projects on the way.
I’m suggesting that Sony should have a more deliberate vision for their Spider-Man cinematic strategy. They could benefit from a more consistent throughline across their different Spider-Man projects to better anchor their fans. Purportedly, there is one behind the scenes from a corporate level, but more transparency would remove ambiguity given their disparate properties.
What I’m not suggesting is a perfectly connected single continuity, the superhero entertainment industry has now embraced the Multiverse so a variety of different Spider-realities can exist. I wrote about this in more detail in a previous post - A Not So Secret Multiverse Movie War.
The connective webbing across the Sony Spider-Verse should be a larger focus on their innovative rendition of the multiverse outlined in the animated Spider-Verse franchise. Sony should also consider decoupling the main cornerstone of the mythology - a live action Peter Parker - from the MCU at the first opportunity for Sony’s own story purposes.
Spider-Movie History
Spider-Man is one of the most popular and greatest heroes in the superhero pantheon. A normal geeky teenager who inherits his powers from a radioactive spider, and balances everyday struggles with heroism. The most recognizable superhero coming-of-age story. Arguably, the crown jewel of Marvel.
So when Marvel went bankrupt in the late 1990s, it’s no surprise why Sony bought the cinematic rights to the wallcrawler. The notable elements of this deal history is that originally Sony’s 1999 purchase sent 5% of movie revenue back to Marvel Studios, while Sony and Marvel would split merchandising profits. In 2011, Disney bought Spider-Man’s merchandising rights from Sony in exchange for the rights to Sony’s film profits. Sony has lifetime movie rights so long as they make a Spider-Man movie every five years and nine months1. Thus far, they have fulfilled this last element. Below is a timeline of the Sony cinematic Spider-Verse.
Spider-Man on the silver screen has gone through different sagas. The first of course being the seminal Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man series. As the MCU was gaining momentum, Sony rebooted Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield, and sought to create a connected universe with The Amazing Spider-Man series to compete against Disney. However, after a lackluster box office performance of this franchise, and the emerging success of the MCU after the first Avengers movie, Sony pivoted again. Sony brokered a deal with Disney whereby the MCU would incorporate a live-action Spider-Man starring Tom Holland to team up with the Avengers. Additionally, Sony would create a series of Spider-Man films set in the MCU starring Holland in creative collaboration with Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios.
This deal didn’t preclude Sony from also making more movies based on the Spider-mythos outside of the MCU. Sony launched two other franchises, the animated Spider-Verse led by Miles Morales, and the Spider-Villain series kicked off by Venom.
And of course, there’s more to come! We still have Beyond the Spider-Verse, the last installment of the animated Spider-Verse trilogy. Another Spider-Villain movie with Kraven. A fourth MCU Tom Holland Spider-Man sequel. The first female led Spider-Man spinoff with Madame Web, Spider-Man Noir live-action series, and likely more in development!
What is the underlying strategy behind Sony’s various projects? Or are they just throwing projects against the wall and hoping they stick?
Spider-Strategy
Sony is a huge multinational conglomerate with strong core competencies in the entertainment industry whether it be movies, video games, or music. However, as mentioned previously Sony only owns the cinematic rights to Spider-Man. Does this restriction mean that Sony is incapable of maximizing the potential of Spidey? Not necessarily.
Let me start my elaboration by outlining a strategic framework that I coined in a previous post - Superhero Flywheel, Up, Up, and Away - which details how companies can grow superhero franchises through key content components that can synergistically build on one another.
Having more flywheel components allows a company to amplify the value of their IP to gain more fans and deepen their loyalty. Sony doesn’t have all the flywheel components because some are outside of the company’s historic competencies, and the movie rights restrictions require them to take a different approach. The table below depicts which flywheel capabilities Sony has and doesn’t have.
Lacking some of these components hasn’t prevented Sony from running a successful Spider-Man franchise. Their upside might be limited, but they’ve made great content with what they have, and more importantly they focus on excelling at what they do best rather than incur costly risks.
Sony’s Two Success Factors
1] Strategic Adaptability: Pivots and Partnerships
Adaptability is integral to success, and Sony has demonstrated this with Spider-Man several times. Sony knows when to cut their losses, make necessary changes, and find strategic partners for capabilities they lack.
The major pivots have been around rebooting their live action Peter Parker to reset their cinematic trajectory. After a poor reception of Spider-Man 3, and a misalignment with Sam Raimi, the director of the Tobey Spider-Man series, for future sequels, Sony pivoted to reboot the webslinger with Andrew Garfield. As mentioned earlier, unfortunately the Amazing Spider-Man series did not perform as well as the company hoped, and coupled with the emergence of the MCU, Sony made another pivot. They brokered a deal with arguably their competitor at the time. So far this has paid off as the Tom Holland rendition of Spider-Man in the MCU has been largely praised.
Along the same lines of partnering with potential competitors, that is the strategy that Sony has pursued in the streaming space. As mentioned, Sony does not have a general streaming platform, but instead has positioned the company as an independent player supplying content to other platforms. For example, Sony has provided The Last Of Us on Max, Cobra Kai on Netflix, and For All Mankind on Apple TV+. This strategy will include Spider-Man as well. Sony licenses Spider-Man movies to Paramount+, Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and the previously mentioned Spider-Man Noir live action series will be on Amazon. It is a pragmatic business decision that has paid off given that streaming platforms have been risky investments requiring billions of dollars of capital to build off while still proving out their business models.
Sony has been in the entertainment industry for a long time… They know what failure looks like, but doesn’t let that hinder their future decisions. They stick to what they’re good at, recognize sunk costs, and maintain their options to evolving market conditions.
2] Enriching the Spider-Man Mythology
While not all of Sony’s Spider-Man and related movies have been a resounding critical or audience success, some have been among the best the superhero genre could ever ask for.
Each of the live action Spider-Men, Tobey, Andrew, and Tom, have all had their emotional beats in their respective series. I regard the first two Maguire Spider-Man movies as integral to establishing the modern day archetypical superhero movie, and the superhero genre owes these two films alot of credit. Whichever Peter Parker you prefer, they have all honored the Spider-Man lore, and their team-up in Spider-Man: No Way Home was a momentous occasion for superhero blockbusters, as well as a celebration of their legacies.
I contend that Sony’s greatest Spider-Man achievement is not in live-action, but actually in animation. Thus far, the first two entrants in the animated Spider-Verse trilogy have been some of the greatest superhero movies ever made. I could wax poetic about them, and I do so in a previous post - Into The Spider-Verse of Innovation! Long story short, they have been groundbreaking masterpieces that pioneer a new animation style, infused Spider-Man with hip hop music, and honors the Spider-Man coming-of-age story and mythos with an innovative depiction of the multiverse. Even James Gunn, the co-CEO of DC Studios, ranks Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as his favorite and best superhero movie!
Going back to the flywheel and Sony’s storied video game capabilities, Sony has also published incredibly popular and highly rated Spider-Man video games! Most recently, through a licensing agreement with Marvel, and a partnership with Insomniac Games, a video game developer, Sony has created a series of Spider-Man games exclusive to Playstation - Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018), Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020), and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 (2023). The popularity of the games have even resulted in comic tie-ins with these Spider-Man renditions in the mainstream Marvel Spider-Man comic lines, as well as a cameo in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
Continuing on in their strategy of diversification, Sony is attempting to give live action opportunities to previously lesser known parts of the Spider-mythos. They’re doing this with movies based on the webslinger’s rogue gallery: Venom, Carnage, Morbius, and Kraven. The previously mentioned Madame Web which will reportedly star various Spider-Women. There are also rumors of a live action Miles Morales movie in the works.
Given the circumstances of their capabilities, Sony has astutely leaned into their competencies - movies, video games, and music - to execute Spider-Man content, and leveraged partnerships for their gaps. They’ve also embraced experimentation to mine the rich Spider-mythos for new gems, they’ve found some already and are looking for more.
Spider-Future
I’ve alluded to a multitude of projects Sony is pursuing with the Spider-franchise, and at the moment there are three core cinematic strategies: a partnership with the MCU, an animated Spider-Verse, and a live action villain series. Purportedly since 2019, there has been a seven to eight year roadmap planned out from Sony for Spider-Man content, so there is a vision from a corporate level.
As fans we’ve seen hints. With the villain franchise Sony is building up to the Sinister Six, which is the moniker for the supervillain team up of Spider-Man’s rogues, which is typically, you guessed it, composed of six of them at any given time. There are post credit scenes in Venom: Let There Be Carnage, Morbius, and Spider-Man: No Way Home which suggests an eventual crossover between Sony’s movies and the MCU, so there is some plan there. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is chock full of cameos and easter eggs from the entire legacy of Sony’s Spider-Verse.
To reiterate, there doesn’t need to be a strictly defined connected universe especially given the multiverse. A more deliberate vision though would help by clearing up ambiguity that fans may have with some of Sony’s hints.
What should the overarching throughline be? The answer is the animated Spider-Verse! In some sense it already is because it establishes the concept of the Spider-multiverse. Sony should be double, triple, quadruple downing on this franchise, and green lighting more spin offs associated with it! There should be more animated Spider-Verse projects than other live action ones Sony has planned. So many elements of it are conducive to being Sony’s focal point. Given its inventive blending of visual styles, each spinoff could be a unique flavor of animation. There’s a variety of strong characters that could easily anchor their own project, or even cross over into live action. We want more Pavitr Prabhakar, Hobie Brown, and Gwen Stacy! Most importantly, the animated Spider-Verse is a true embodiment of the everyman identity of Spider-Man. It is an audacious declaration that any color, gender, creed, or even pig can be Spider-Man!
Another recommendation is to consider decoupling a live action Peter Parker from the MCU. While I just mentioned that Peter Parker isn’t absolutely necessary to carry out a Spider-Verse, he certainly helps. He is still the progenitor of the Spider-Man mythology, and incredibly popular. While a live-action Peter in the MCU has been mutually beneficial to Sony and Disney, I can’t help but worry that the weight of the MCU makes it challenging to do justice to true Peter Parker centric stories. Not to mention some of these new live action projects, like the villain series, could benefit from their own live action Peter Parker anchor. We love Miles Morales, and he can definitely carry the mantle, but having a live action 1a and 1b would be potent for Sony.
In any case, we’ve gotten iconic pieces of art that I’m not convinced would have been possible if the wallcrawler never ended up with Sony and stayed with Marvel. As a result, Sony has earned our patience, and so far our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is in good hands.
*If you’re interested in learning about the other major cinematic strategies in the superhero entertainment industry, feel free to read my previous posts: Marvel vs. DC - Cinematic Strategy (Part 1), Marvel vs. DC - Cinematic Strategy (Part 2), Netflix and Amazon: Comic Book Adaptations