Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra is blaming the critics for the box office failures of both Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web.

Studio heads should have learned years ago that just because a project is based on a comic book property doesn’t mean it’s going to be a hit. Take, for the most recent example, Kraven the Hunter, which may be based on a Marvel comic but has proven to be a late-calendar flop for Sony. And so who’s the blame for that? Why, the critics, of course – if Sony’s CEO is to be believed…

Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra, who took over his position in 2017, says he hasn’t faced a dud as big as Kraven the Hunter since stepping in. For numbers, it opened at #3 with just $11 million before falling more than 70%, an indication it will be out of the top 10 soon enough. As of publication, it has taken in only $18.5 million domestically off of a budget reported to be north of $130 million.

With that, Vinciquerra thinks the critics are the ones who buried Kraven the Hunter before it even hit theaters. To back up his claim, he also cited Madame Web, Sony’s other monumental 2024 flop that couldn’t recoup its budget. “Madame Web underperformed in the theaters because the press just crucified it. It was not a bad film, and it did great on Netflix. 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.”

Whether or not you want to blame critics (or internet culture) as playing crucial roles in both Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web doing terrible numbers at the box office, Vinciquerra is also hitting on a more telling point, one which seems to be going over his head. Venom did better because people know who Venom is and there was something firm established. Really, outside of the die-hards, who cares about Kraven enough to think he warrants his own $100+ million movie?

But to his credit, Vinciquerra did at least say that Sony’s Spider-Man Universe needs an overhaul because of both Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web. He told the Los Angeles Times, “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.“

What do you make of both Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web’s poor box office performances?