Sony Will Eventually Reboot its Spider-Man Universe Starting Over From Scratch, According to Tom Rothman

Sony isn’t done playing in the Spider-Man sandbox. After a rocky run of villain-led spinoffs that never quite found their footing, the studio is officially hitting reset on its Spider-Man Universe. A full reboot is on the way, complete with a clean slate and a brand-new cast.

If you’ve been following Sony’s Marvel experiment over the last several years, you know it’s been a strange ride. While Tom Holland’s Peter Parker swung comfortably through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sony built its own interconnected franchise around characters pulled from Spidey’s rogues gallery. The catch? Spider-Man himself barely factored into it.

That shared universe, dubbed Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, kicked off with Venom and expanded to include Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter. The results were mixed at best and disastrous at worst.

While the Venom trilogy managed to pull in solid box office numbers, even those films saw diminishing returns with each sequel and weren’t exactly embraced by critics. The rest of the lineup didn’t fare nearly as well.

Morbius and Madame Web both failed to crack $200 million worldwide. Kraven the Hunter went even lower, setting a new floor for the franchise with just $61.9 million globally. That’s a brutal number for a comic book movie in today’s market.

So what now?

During an appearance on the podcast The Town, Tom Rothman addressed the future of Sony’s Marvel plans. When asked if the studio would “go back” to “the larger Spider-Verse” at some point, Rothman simply said yes.

He then clarified that it would be a full reboot that wipes the slate clean with an all-new cast. He didn’t offer further details, but that confirmation alone says a lot.

A hard reset feels like the only real option at this stage. The previous strategy of spotlighting Spider-Man villains without Spider-Man didn’t connect the way Sony hoped it would.

Audiences showed up for Venom out of curiosity and star power, but the rest of the lineup struggled to justify their existence without the web-slinger at the center.

The interesting twist is that Sony may already be testing a smarter direction.

This year brings the release of the live-action series Spider-Noir, starring Nicolas Cage as a variant of Ben Reilly. Instead of trying to replicate the tone of the MCU, Spider-Noir leans hard into its aesthetic.

The show draws from classic film noir, with a moody black-and-white style and a pulpy detective vibe. Footage suggests something stylistically distinct, and it feels like a genuine attempt to do something different within the superhero space.

That might be the blueprint moving forward.

Rather than building a universe around supporting villains, Sony could pivot to telling stories centered on different Spider-Man variants. The animated Spider-Verse films already proved that audiences are more than willing to embrace alternate versions of the character.

The Spider-Man brand is strong enough that a fresh take, handled the right way, can absolutely carry its own movie or series.

A reboot focused on Spider-Man variants would also solve one of the biggest missteps of the original wave: the absence of Spider-Man. It would give Sony its own corner of the multiverse while still allowing Holland’s Peter Parker to exist in the MCU without overlap or confusion.

If Sony goes this route, the key will be tone and identity. Spider-Noir works because it fully commits to its old-school noir roots. A hypothetical Spider-Punk project would need that same level of commitment, leaning into the chaotic, rebellious energy of punk rock culture. Each variant should feel like its own world, not just another standard superhero movie with a different costume.

For now, it sounds like the reboot is in its earliest stages, so don’t expect casting news anytime soon. But the fact that Sony is openly acknowledging the need to start over is a good sign. The Spider-Man mythos is too rich and too popular to sit on the sidelines.

Sony swung big with its first attempt. Now it’s gearing up for a second shot. The question is whether this time, it’ll finally stick the landing.