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Sony Proves Everything Wrong With Modern Superhero Movies

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published

kraven the hunter

Haters of Sony’s superhero movies featuring Spider-Man villains received mixed news this past week. Amid Kraven the Hunter’s box office failure, Sony has reportedly abandoned its plans to create an interconnected universe of Spidey’s rivals. However, Variety reports that the studio will continue to work in this genre with upcoming releases like Beyond the Spider-Verse and the live-action Spider-Man Noir series starring Nicolas Cage. While nobody can deny the ambitious quality of the Spider-Verse films, the news that Sony will continue making superhero movies depresses me because they exemplify everything wrong with the genre.

Sony Superhero Movies Taste Success

As Exhibitor Relations analyst Jeff Bock noted, Sony’s fatal flaw is that “they had a taste of success with Venom,” and this led them to think they could just crank out “superhero” movies built around Spidey’s colorful rogues’ gallery. He noted how the studio didn’t realize “that Venom could carry a franchise, whereas these other characters could not.” Keeping Spider-Man out of his own villains’ films “was the fatal flaw” because most of these villains aren’t compelling on their own, and the disastrous Madame Web proved that Sony is equally inept when it comes to focusing on a superhero rather than a supervillain for their underbaked movies.

Who Are These Heroes?

morbius

That brings us to the first obvious example of Sony’s hubris: they inexplicably assumed that audiences didn’t want any kind of name-brand recognition for these cinematic protagonists. Marvel has been working hard to make Venom a colo comics character since the ‘90s, and accordingly, there was plenty of material to draw from when creating his solo films. But characters like Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven aren’t nearly as popular or developed, and focusing on them was just as crazy as if the MCU had released Vulture or Mysterio films without Spider-Man. 

Speaking of the MCU, comparing them to Sony reveals just how much the latter studio put the cart before the horse with their superhero movies. While Marvel has cast some big names before, many of fans’ favorite characters are played by people who were relatively unknown, including Tom Holland. Marvel took the time to bring in good actors who would win audiences over, but with movies like Kraven and Madame Web, they seemed to hope some familiar stunt casting (hey, look, the guy from Kick-Ass is an antihero now!) would be enough to stoke audience interest.

No Connecting Web

Michael Keaton

Making matters worse is that Sony never quite figured out how to properly connect its superhero movies. We get gestures toward a shared universe like the MCU’s Vulture in Morbius, and a No Way Home post-credits confirmation from Marvel that Sony’s movies were in their own multiverse. But the movies never seemed to be building to anything nor taking advantage of their shared universe. That wouldn’t matter if the individual heroes and villains were incredibly compelling, but that simply isn’t the case.

The punchline to all of this is that Sony is committed to making more superhero movies, and there are basically no signs that they have learned from the critical and commercial failures of Morbius, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter. The studio seems committed to burning millions upon millions of dollars on stuff that looks and feels like the dreck that you’d find on the virtual bottom shelf of Tubi. We can only hope they’ve internalized at least one lesson going forward: that audiences might actually want Spider-Man in a Spider-Man universe film.

Or, you know, they could just hope things like those ironic “it’s Morbin’ time” memes can give these awful films the cultural footprint they would never enjoy on their own dismal merits.

Source: Variety


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Entertainment

This $10 upgrade transforms your PC — but it’s only on sale until midnight

TL;DR: Upgrade a PC affordably with this Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license, on sale for just $9.97 (reg. $199) through tonight at midnight.


Want to get the feeling of a new computer without having to shell out all the money for one? A new operating system gives your device a whole new feel, and if you’ve got a PC lying around, it could probably use this Microsoft Windows 11 Pro upgrade. If you act fast, you can get it for only $9.97 through tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT.

Windows 11 Pro breathes new life into an old computer, extending its lifespan for less than the cost of your lunch. Unlike older operating systems, this one was made with the modern professional in mind.

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Rest easy knowing Windows 11 Pro is filled with features that can improve your workflow — from an easy-to-use interface that enhances usability to snap layouts, seamless redocking, a more powerful search experience, and improved voice typing.

Take advantage of unique professional tools like Azure AD, Hyper-V, Windows Sandbox, and BitLocker device encryption. Then take a break and check out the impressive gaming experience offered by DirectX 12 Ultimate graphics.

Windows 11 Pro includes Copilot, Microsoft’s very own AI-powered assistant, which can assist you with a wide range of tasks. Get some help kickstarting your writing process, summarizing web pages, changing your settings, or even opening your apps.

You can also enjoy improved cybersecurity with Windows 11 Pro, as it adds biometric logins, encrypted authentication, and enhanced antivirus protection.

Get your PC a Microsoft Windows 11 Pro license for only $9.97 tonight through midnight.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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3 AdultFriendFinder red flags — how to avoid scams on AFF

Depending on who you ask, AdultFriendFinder is either the Wild West of hookup sites, an “anything goes” paradise for adult fun, or a total scam replete with bots, fake profiles, and inactive accounts. 

After months of personal testing, I can confidently say which AFF you experience ultimately boils down to how you use the site. If you approach it naively, without a strategy, you’re probably going to have some frustrating experiences. On the other hand, if you exercise a modicum of caution and common sense, you’ll discover a huge, fun, and kink-friendly community.

Here are three red flags to look out for as you use AFF, to help you spot potential scammers and separate the authentic users from the fake profiles.

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Credit: AdultFriendFinder

Unverified accounts

AdultFriendFinder already offers a fantastic first step in combatting fake profiles that they call ConfirmID. Once you’ve created an account, you can, at any time, upload a clear scan of a government-issued ID card and then, using a webcam, undergo a quick face verification scan to confirm that you are indeed the person identified in the government document. 

This step strikes the perfect balance between not being onerous enough to annoy the average user but still requiring enough effort to deter scammers, who notoriously go after the low-hanging fruit. 

Once you’ve completed the ConfirmID sequence, you’ll be rewarded with a verification badge on your profile, and we strongly recommend that you limit your one-on-one interactions on the site to other verified users. 

Perfect profile photos

Alright, admittedly this one requires some personal judgment, as everyone should strive to upload good, high-quality photos of themselves to dating websites. But if every photo looks like it belongs in a magazine, or if the person in the photo looks a little too good to be true, you should exercise caution.

In the age of generative AI and filters, it’s trivially easy to create a fake photo or series of photos, so you should also be on the lookout for what isn’t in the photos. Are there recognizable local landmarks (clubs, restaurants, well-known parks, or street corners) in the photos, or are they all equally generic?

Over-eager chatters

Ever since chat bots became a thing, dating sites have become plagued with them, and as AI improves more and more, it’s not always easy to know, right away, if the “person” you’re talking to is really human. One dead giveaway, though, is how much they chat and how quickly they reply. 

Real people go off on tangents, employ non sequiturs, and sometimes stumble with awkward questions or comments. Chat bots, on the other hand, are typically always chipper and extremely fast-talking, so much so that a paragraph-long answer can come back to you in seconds. 

They also almost always have an agenda, too, whether that’s directing you to click on a link (“Follow my Instagram profile”) or getting you to divulge some potentially compromising bit of personal information about yourself.

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SNL opens with another Pete Hegseth press conference

Saturday Night Live returned from a brief hiatus Saturday with a cold open depicting a joint press conference between Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel, with “Master of None” creator Aziz Ansari playing the latter.

Colin Jost’s Hegseth hit the familiar beats at the podium — performative machismo, military bravado, and repeated jabs at the secretary’s well-documented drinking habits. This time, Hegseth arrived at the mic hauling an oversized pitcher of scotch, which he assured the room was his one for the day. He then fielded questions from the press about the administration’s handling of U.S. strikes on Iran, dismissing each reporter with the particular brand of smug confidence that has become central to Jost’s portrayal of the character.

Ansari’s Patel proved to be the sketch’s standout, arriving to defend his tenure at the FBI and proceeding to do so poorly. The bit’s centerpiece involved Patel simultaneously denying and admitting that he had locked himself out of his work email for 36 hours after forgetting he had changed his password to “kashmeoutside69.”

Funnily enough, Patel was reportedly locked out of his FBI email in real life and believed, at least momentarily, that he was being fired. As the sketch demonstrated, the distance between SNL’s Cold Open and the actual news cycle has rarely felt smaller.

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