Sony Exec Shifts Blame For Madame Web & Kraven Failures To Critics & Says Spider-Man Spin-Offs Need A Rethink: “They Were Just Destroyed”

Sony’s CEO has broken cover to address the underwhelming box office performance and critical reception of the company’s Spider-Man spin-off movies, laying the blame at the feet of critics who “destroyed” the Marvel films.

Outgoing executive Tony Vinciquerra, who joined the company in 2017 to oversee a difficult period in the wake of the now infamous 2014 cyber attack that damaged the studio. Asked about his tenure, Vinciquerra told the LA Times that the recent release of Kraven: The Hunter “is probably the worst launch we had in the 7 1/2 years so that didn’t work out very well, which I still don’t understand, because the film is not a bad film.”

Pressed for more on the performance of the Spider-Man spin-off universe (Sony’s SSU), Vinciquerra was bullish in addressing what he believes is to blame:

Let’s just touch on “Madame Web” for a moment. “Madame Web” underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it. It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. For some reason, the press decided that they didn’t want us making these films out of “Kraven” and “Madame Web,” and the critics just destroyed them. They also did it with “Venom,” but the audience loved “Venom” and made “Venom” a massive hit. These are not terrible films. They were just destroyed by the critics in the press, for some reason.

Further, The LA Times asked the executive whether he believes the “Spider-Man” universe strategy needs to be rethought, again suggesting that critics have an agenda against the SSU movies, and suggesting that critical response would be unfairly biased, no matter how good any future Spider-Man spin-offs would be:

I do think we need to rethink it, just because it’s snake-bitten. If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is.

Source: LA Times.