This year, two movies were massive punchlines: Madame Web and Kraven the Hunter. Technically part of Sony's Spider-Man movie universe, both films have hilariously low Rotten Tomatoes scores from critics, with Madame Web at 11 percent and Kraven at 17 percent. The other Sony Spider-verse movie that hit this year was Venom: The Last Dance, which was also poorly reviewed, sitting at 41 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
But now, one Sony executive is defending these movies and saying that if you don't like them, you've just been told to think that way. Tony Vinciquerra, CEO of Sony Pictures since 2017, just told the LA Times: "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."
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Critically savaged, both Madame Web and Kraven were box office bombs, though Madame Web has had some big streaming success on Netflix. Vinciquerra's claim—that regular folks like these movies while snobby critics don't—isn't entirely outlandish. If you look at the audience score for Kraven, it sits at 74 percent versus its 17 percent critical score. Ditto Venom: The Last Dance, which received tepid reviews, but has an 81 percent from audiences on RT, and did great at the box office.
However, Vinciquerra blaming critics for destroying all the Sony Spidey movies doesn't really work with Madame Web, which has a 55 percent audience score on RT, and, very likely, only did decently on Netflix because at least half the people watching were morbidly curious about what the fuss was all about. If Vinciquerra was only defending Venom, then he might have a point; movie critics seemed to be out of touch with audiences on that one, but his assessment doesn't really work for Kraven or Madame Web. (This defense also doesn't work for the previous Spiderverse film Morbius, which was totally the Madame Web of 2022.)
So, is Vinciquerra right? Was there a movie critic conspiracy to destroy these movies? Probably not. Movie critics all wanted to see Sydney Sweeney, Dakota Johnson, and Isabela Merced succeed in Madame Web. We all think Aaron Taylor-Johnson is a good leading action star. S. J. Clarkson, who directed Madame Web, is a great TV director. Meanwhile, J. C. Chandor, who helmed Kraven has made great films, including Margin Call and Triple Frontier. The talent associated with these movies was strong, but for some reason, the movies fell apart.
Sony can blame critics all they want, but if you watch Madame Web or Kraven, it's clear something else happened with those movies. For now, Sony will no longer put out Spider-Man spinoffs into its web, which, if we're all honest, is probably for the best.
