Entertainment
Sony Proves Everything Wrong With Modern Superhero Movies
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
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?
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
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
Entertainment
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.
Entertainment
NYT Connections Sports Edition today: Hints and answers for May 3, 2026
Today’s Connections: Sports Edition will require some knowledge of popular U.S. sports and pop culture.
As we’ve shared in previous hints stories, this is a version of the popular New York Times word game that seeks to test the knowledge of sports fans.
Like the original Connections, the game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier — so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.
If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for the latest Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
What is Connections: Sports Edition?
The NYT‘s latest daily word game has launched in association with The Athletic, the New York Times property that provides the publication’s sports coverage. The sports Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.
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Each puzzle features 16 words, and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer.
If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake — players get up to four mistakes before the game ends.
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Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.
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Here’s a hint for today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories
Want a hint about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:
Here are today’s Connections: Sports Edition categories
Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:
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Yellow: In Good Shape
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Green: Current NFL Head Coaches
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Blue: Famous Sports “Curses”
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Purple: Starts of Big Ten Names
Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.
Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.
Drumroll, please!
The solution to today’s Connections: Sports Edition #586 is…
What is the answer to Connections: Sports Edition today?
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In Good Shape: AGIL, ATHLETIC, FIT, STRONG
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Current NFL Head Coaches: COEN, GLENN, REID, RYANS
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Famous Sports “Curses”: BAMBINO, BILLY GOAT, MADDEN, SI COVER
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Starts of Big Ten Names: BOIL, BUCK, CORN, HAWK
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new sports Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.
Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Connections.
Entertainment
The DJI Mini 5 Pro drone is $500 off right now at Amazon — save on this content creator favorite
SAVE $500: The DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo is on sale for $1,099 at Amazon. That’s $500 off the list price of $1,599.
$1,099
at Amazon
$1,599
Save $500
What’s going to happen to the drone market in 2026? Due to legislative pressure on DJI imports in the U.S., there is so much uncertainty at the moment. We expected stock issues by now, but we’re actually seeing strong discounts on some of the best drones in the DJI range.
The DJI Mini 5 Pro Fly More Combo is on sale for $1,099 at Amazon. That’s $500 off and close to the record-low price.
The DJI Mini 5 Pro offers a huge 1-inch CMOS sensor, so whether you’re shooting 50MP stills or 4K/120fps slow-motion, the dynamic range more than delivers. The DJI Mini 5 Pro also makes use of forward-facing LiDAR that powers the new Nightscape Omnidirectional Sensing, meaning it can dodge branches, power lines, and buildings even when you don’t have eyes on your drone.
This popular drone offers 42GB of internal storage, meaning you can actually capture a full session of 4K footage without needing an external card as backup. That can have a massive impact for content creators.
Mashable Deals
Save $500 on the DJI Mini 5 Pro this weekend.
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