Send In the Clones

The Sony Spider-Man Universe, or SSU (née SPUMC), is in a bit of a bizarre place at the moment. Part of that universe—the bit that features Tom Holland as Spider-Man—is doing very, very well. I mean, have you heard of the biggest film in motion picture history at the American box office? So nice they're trying it out twice, even?

That's the "Spider-Man" bit, joined in part by the wild success of the animated Miles Morales films, which will bow out after years of waiting in 2027. The bit that makes it a "universe," in the meantime, is actively on fire. With the end of the popular-but-diminishing returns of the Venom movies with Tom Hardy, Sony has been left with a string of similarly diminishing attempts to hold onto as much of the ancillary Spider-Man IP on the big screen.

Morbius was at least terrible enough to enter a brief period of cult meme status despite its financial failures; Madame Web, unappreciated in her camp charms, similarly followed suit (Dakota Johnson remains innocent). And then there was Kraven the Hunter, which didn't even have the gall to be funny or gay about it, making its financial and critical failure all the more embarrassing. For a brief moment this year it felt like Sony had a vague idea of where it could go next with the launch of Spider-Noir on Prime Video, but the Nic-Cage-starring series, drawing on his connection to the Spider-Verse films, was promptly canceled after its first season drew critical praise, but seemingly little in the way of audience engagement being dumped in one go.

Enter its next attempt: this week, Deadline reported that Sony is once again working on a TV series with Prime Video, a purported story that would, somehow, adapt elements of the infamous Clone Saga and bring together Kaine Parker and Ben Reilly. On the surface, it seems absurd. But really? It might just be Sony realizing what it's needed to realize all along: there is no universe, only Spider-Man.

Or at least people that look like him.