Back in February, Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group CEO Tom Rothman implied during a conversation with Matt Belloni that Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, home to such beloved films as Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter, would be getting a reboot with new talent. Now, it seems as though even that might be wishful thinking.

In an interview with Variety, Rothman was blunt about the prospects of more Spider-Man-adjacent films. “Ultimately, the audience wasnât satisfied enough with [Sony’s Spider-Man spin-offs],” Rothman said. “Whether thatâs a fair assessment of those movies, who knows. Thatâs howling into the wind. The audience is the boss, and they didnât respond. Itâs as simple as that.”

When asked about whether audiences could expect more films set in the extended Spider-Man universe, Rothman said, “Right now, we donât know. We never looked at it as the ‘Sony-Marvel Universe.’ We looked at if there were worthwhile movies to make with other characters. At the moment, there are none in active development.”

That second statement is particularly damning, as it seems like, at least right now, Rothman and his team don’t think there are worthwhile movies to be made about the small collection of Marvel characters to which Sony has the film rights. And while we’re all well aware of how bad Morbius and Madame Web were, surely that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to tell interesting stories about those characters, right? It just means those particular movies weren’t the right way to approach them.

And it’s not as though Sony doesn’t know how to tell a Spider-Man story: Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is generally excellent, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a delight. I’m sure there are people out there that will argue for the merits of the Venom trilogy, too. I wouldn’t, but surely someone would!

Which is all to say: the characters aren’t the problem. But it’s not hard to see why Sony might be wary of making more Spider-Man-adjacent films when its track record could fairly be categorized as “quite poor, on the whole.” Still, Rothman is right that something needs to change, whether that’s a reboot or taking a step back to reevaluate what to do with these characters.

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