Proper branding. They can help any and all cinematic universes as they work to establish a foothold. “The MCU.” Rolls off of the tongue. “The DCEU.” Pretty good. Even “Fast & Furious” has enough recognition that a movie like Hobbs and Shaw can attach itself to the brand and lure in an audience. But what about the current run of movies being built by Sony around the on-screen character of Spider-Man?
We have more than enough projects in the Spider-Man arsenal over at Sony to make up a proper cinematic universe. So it seems like the powers that be need decided it was time for a name for this endeavor. Initially, a Tweet advertising all of the Spider-Man movies – from Tobey Maguire to Tom Holland – labeled the collection as the Spider-Man Universe of Characters:
Cool, cool, that makes sense. But IGN then reached out to Sony and heard that the actual name for the cinematic universe is going to be the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters, and damn, that is a mouthful.
It also casts a wide net, and it needs to, because that roster of Marvel characters showing up on the Sony side is growing year after year. They’ve always had Spider-Man. But in recent past, they have added both Venom and Carnage through Ruben Fleischer’s Venom movie. Jared Leto is poised to play the vampire Morbius in a 2021 movie. And the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse kicked open the door on an army of new characters, from Spider-Gwen Miles Morales to villains like Kingpin, Green Goblin and The Prowler.
Needless to say, the stable of Spider-related characters is growing large on Sony’s side, so it makes perfect sense for the studio to brand them in a collection that fans can follow.
That name, though. It’s not quite as pithy as one might hope. It doesn’t lend itself to a clever acronym. SPUMC? Gross. And yet, this is the studio that is going ahead with Venom: Let There Be Carnage, so all bets really are off at this stage of the game.
Still, there are reasons to expect that this universe is going to continue to grow now that it has a collective title. Venom: Let There Be Carnage will expand on Cletus Kasady, and possibly even introduce Shriek (played by Naomie Harris). There have been plans for a Kraven the Hunter movie, as well as rumors of a Sinister Six film. And that doesn’t even get to the plans for Silver Sable and Black Cat. There are a lot of spinning plates.
Do you like the name? Should Sony head back to the workshop? Vote in the poll below, and let’s see how this develops… once Hollywood is able to begin making movies again.
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