Sony’s sloppy Spider-Man universe gets even messier with Spider-Noir

The article argues that Sony’s Spider-Man projects remain inconsistent, with the acclaimed Spider-Verse films showing what the studio can do when it embraces inventive storytelling. A new Spider-Noir project could expand that creativity, but it also threatens to make Sony’s already muddled web of Spider-Man-adjacent stories harder to follow.

Sony is still trying to turn Spider-Man rights into a broader franchise without relying entirely on Marvel Studios, but its track record outside animation has been uneven. The challenge is whether character-focused spinoffs can feel essential rather than like rights-driven extensions of a brand.

After years of it seeming like the Spider-Man film rights might be better off in Marvel's hands alone, Into the Spider-Verse came along and proved that Sony was still capable of telling phenomenal stories featuring everyone's favorite webhead. Into the Spider-Verse's sumptuous visuals and focus on a different web-slinging New Yorker made it unlike any other Spider-Man adaptation. And it was genuinely shocking to see Sony follow the film up with a bigger, bolder, more imaginative sequel just a few years later. Part of what made the first two Spider-Verse features so much fun to watch was the way they cleverly incorporated many of the lesser- … Read the full story at The Verge.