Sony CEO Thinks Madame Web, Kraven Are Not Bad Films: Blames Press For Spider-Man Spinoff Failures

Yikes! I’ve been wondering who should take the blame for the big failure of the Sony Spider-Man spinoff movies, which includes both Kraven and Madame Web massively flopping. You know you’re in trouble when the boss is to blame. Venom 3 also didn’t do that well. Of course, Morbius absolutely tanked and is horrible, too.

Now get this, the head of Sony Pictures actually says Kraven (I haven’t seen it, yet) and Madame Web (it’s awful) are not bad movies. The exec also goes so far as to blame press for their failures. I suppose the good news is that he doesn’t blame the fans, right?

Doesn’t understand why Kraven flopped

Speaking with the LA Times, Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra says he doesn’t understand why Kraven flopped:

We’ve had mostly very, very good results. Unfortunately, [“Kraven the Hunter”] that we launched last weekend, and my last film launch, 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.

Madame Web “was not a bad film”

Regarding, Madame Web, which is one of the worst CBM’s of all time, Vinciquerra says Madame Web “was not a bad film” (well, he’s right because it’s not a bad film, it’s a horrible film):

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.

“Destroyed by the critics in the press”

Regarding blaming the press, Vinciquerra says the press gave the films bad reviews intentionally because they didn’t want them to be made:

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.

Rumors sound right

Rumors have offered Sony is now pivoting and will be focusing on Spider-Man instead of spinoff characters. It’s said Sony is focusing on Spider-Man 4, its third Spider-Verse movie, and the upcoming Spider-Noir TV series at Amazon starring Nicolas Cage. When asked if he thinks the Spider-Man universe strategy needs to be rethought, Vinciquerra seems to backup what the rumors hav said:

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.

Kraven is still in theaters. It’s brought in less than $19M domestically, and it’s worldwide gross is less than $44M.