Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman has confirmed that the studio will reboot its cinematic universe of “Spider-Man” spin-offs following a number of box-office flops.
Appearing on Matt Belloni’s The Town podcast today, Rothman was asked where things stand with the “Spider-Man” franchise outside of the main series and the animated Spider-Verse films.
Namely he’s referring to the SSU (or SPUMC) films which include the likes of the “Venom” trilogy, “Morbius,” “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter”.
Asked if the larger Spider-Verse is dead, he said “No”. Is the studio going to go back to those at some point, Rothman confirmed “Yes”. Asked if it’ll be a fresh reboot? “Yes”. With new people? “Yes”.
Rothman says the overall deal with Marvel has a “big upside for us and it’s been one of the great deals for both companies ever. A true win-win deal.”
He then discussed his frustration with the last film, “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” making $1.9 billion at the box-office, saying it would’ve been over $2 billion but it didn’t get into China.
He then revealed why: “They just [said] small thing. They said, ‘No problem. just cut out the Statue of Liberty, which is where the climax takes place. That was the request.”
The host points out that’s “like the last 20 minutes of the movie.” Rothman responds: “Yeah, there was that. And also, I really didn’t look forward to standing up, sitting in there in front of Congress, telling them why I cut the Statue of Liberty out at the request of the Chinese Communist Party.”
He then confirmed that there is no Statue of Liberty in the new Spider-Man.
