Tom Rothman confirmed that Sony Pictures plans to reboot its Spider-Man universe, introducing new characters and storylines in upcoming projects.
While conversing with Matt Belloni on The Town podcast, Rothman was asked, “Where are we in the Spider-Man franchise? Not the animated Spider-Verse. Is the larger Spider-Verse dead?”
“No,” replied Rothman.
Then he was asked, “Are you going to go back to those at some point?”
“Yes,” Rothman simply confirmed.
Belloni questioned, “But it’ll be a fresh reboot?”
Rothman responded, “Yes.”
Upon asking about the possibility of joining “new people” in the cast, Rothman stated, “Yes, yes.”
The executive added that “scarcity has value … you got to make the audience miss you.”
Rothman confirmed that Spider-Man: No Way Home was banned in China over its Statue of Liberty climax, adding that the film still earned $1.9 billion worldwide, which “pisses me off to have to say this.”
He said, “You say, ‘$1.9 billion, what’s wrong with [saying] 2?’ Well, it didn’t get into China, but in my mind [the film’s box office is] over 2 [billion] because I know what we would have done in China.”
Rothman mentioned, “[The China Film Administration] just said, ‘Small thing, no problem, just cut out the Statue of Liberty’ — which is where the climax is. That was their request.”
Notably., the live-action Spider-Man universe struggled with poor reviews and weak box office, from 2018’s Venom ($856M) to 2022’s Morbius ($162M), 2024’s Madame Web ($100M), and Kraven the Hunter ($60M vs. $100M+ budget).
