As he prepares to depart from Sony Pictures, CEO Tony Vinciquerra seemed to have few, if any, regrets about his seven-year run as studio head. That includes this year’s pair of “Spider-Man” spinoff bombs, “Madame Web” and “Kraven the Hunter.”
In early 2024, “Madame Web,” one of the lowest-rated films of the year, grossed just $100 million internationally, against an announced budget of $80 million. “Kraven the Hunter”, Sony’s latest release under the direction of Vinciquerra, even worse at the box office, grossing only $43. 8 million internationally and after 12 days of release in theaters.
Despite poor reception from critics and audiences, Vinciquerra supported them in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
“I still don’t understand it, because this movie is not a bad movie,” Vinciquerra said. “‘Madame Web’ underperformed in the cinema because the press just crucified her. It wasn’t a bad movie and it worked great on Netflix. For some reason, the press didn’t need us to make those ‘Kraven’ and ‘Madame Web’ movies, 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,” he continued.
Sony’s comic book projects will once again focus on Spider-Man himself for the foreseeable future, with the animated film “Beyond the Spider-Verse” in production and a fourth live-action film starring Tom Holland scheduled for release in 2026. Vinciquerra stated that Sony will have to reconsider its strategy in the face of this “snake-bitten” series.
“If we put another one out, it’s going to get destroyed, no matter how good or bad it is,” he said.
Despite those major misfires, Sony Pictures on the whole has seen a major rebound under Vinciquerra’s tenure. In 2016, the year prior to Vinciquerra’s arrival, Sony Pictures Entertainment reported a $719 million loss for the Japanese tech conglomerate and was reeling from a mass email hack that had sent the company’s stocks spiraling.
“The environment of the studios and the business was still vibrating from the hack,” Vinciquerra said. “There was so much damage done by that in terms of invasion of privacy and sharing of emails. It was palpable. You could feel it even in June of ’17 when I joined.”
Since then, Vinciquerra has led Sony to a first rebound led by the “Spider-Man” trilogy produced by Marvel Studios with Holland. Formed through a partnership with Disney, the three films combined grossed $3. 9 billion at the global box office and led to a production deal between Sony and new Dutch production company, Billy17.
Beyond Spidey, Vinciquerra’s successes at Sony come with films like “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” and the adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s “It Ends With Us. ” On the television side, Sony has undergone a major transitional generation for its flagship game shows “Jeopardy! ” and “Wheel of Fortune” with the death of the former’s host, Alex Trebek, and the retirement of the latter’s host, Pat Sajak.
Sony is also a major player in anime with the acquisition of Crunchyroll and the first studio since 2002 to own a movie theater chain with the acquisition of Alamo Drafthouse.
But perhaps Vinciquerra’s biggest impact on Sony was the decision to deviate from other major studios and not establish a streaming service, instead reaching a landmark distribution deal on its theatrical releases with Netflix.
“All of our competing corporations had introduced or were about to launch general entertainment streaming services, and we were also under some pressure to do so,” Vinciquerra said. “But we learned quite temporarily that if everyone did this (all seven or eight of our competition did), why do we deserve to do it?Knowing that they would fight tooth and nail for subscribers, why wouldn’t we simply be the arms dealers guilty of selling the guns to those streaming services to fight each other and thus our activity?
After he steps down on January 2, Vinciquerra will remain at Sony in an advisory role through 2025. He will be succeeded by SPE President/COO Ravi Ahuja.