Last week, Sony was the latest in the parade of media giants to announce its fourth-quarter earnings. Results were mixed, with strong earnings from Sony’s music and gaming divisions and a weaker performance from their film division with disappointing box office from its Spider-Man universe movies VENOM: THE LAST DANCE and KRAVEN THE HUNTER. While Wall Street investors were mostly encouraged by these results, movie-focused stakeholders were less so.
The fourth quarter began with the October 25 release of VENOM: THE LAST DANCE, which wound up selling $140M at the domestic box office. This was a notably lower amount than the $214M domestic earned by its predecessor in 2021 VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE. Even so, CARNAGE wound up being the lowest-grossing release in the Venom franchise, despite some success in the international market.
Moreover, THE LAST DANCE was the high point for Sony movies during the quarter, with the December 13 opening of KRAVEN THE HUNTER earning a worldwide total of $62M, after spending $110M to make the movie.
These results from VENOM and KRAVEN movies came after similar disappointments from MORBIUS and MADAME WEB, and taken together have forced Sony to call off future movie releases focused on supporting characters from Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (SSU). With the release date of the next Spider-Man movie SPIDER-MAN: BEYOND THE SPIDER-VERSE still not been set, Sony will be taking a break from the superhero genre in 2025.