Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) was released worldwide on July 31, and it has already grossed an absolutely staggering $942 million worldwide on a $225 million budget, making it the third-highest-grossing Spider-Man movie ever and the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2026.Brand New Day marks Tom Holland’s fourth solo Spidey outing, his seventh appearance as the character, and the 38th film in the MCU. It’s also the ninth live-action Spider-Man film and the 14th theatrical release for the web-slinger, including the two animated Spider-Verse entries.Credit: Sony Pictures/Marvel StudiosWhile no future MCU films with Spider-Man have been announced yet, Holland and Marvel president Kevin Feige have each confirmed that there are plans to bring him back — which is hardly surprising given how much money the character continues to generate at the box office.It remains to be seen whether Holland will return in Avengers: Doomsday (2026), which releases this December. The actor is not part of the film’s extensive lineup; however, many fans believe that Brand New Day‘s post-credits scene suggests he will get a cameo of some kind.Credit: Sony Pictures/Marvel StudiosSpider-Man Film Series No Longer in DevelopmentWhile we can all but guarantee that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man will return at some point, the same can’t be said about Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (the SSU), the series of villain-centered spinoffs that includes the Venom trilogy (2018–2024) and Madame Web (2024).Earlier this year, Sony chairman and CEO Tom Rothman surprised fans when he said that those films would be rebooted with new actors.On The Town podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter), he was asked, “Where are we in the Spider-Man franchise? Not the animated Spider-Verse. Is the larger Spider-Verse dead?”, to which he replied that the franchise is getting a “fresh reboot” with “new people”.Credit: Sony PicturesRelated: All 8 Major Spider-Man Actors Ranked Worst To Best Following ‘Brand New Day’Now, in an interview with Variety following the release of the MCU’s box-office hit Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the same question was once again put to Rothman.“Ultimately, the audience wasn’t satisfied enough with them,” he said when asked why he thought all the other films outside the Venom trilogy failed commercially, adding, “Whether that’s a fair assessment of those movies, who knows. That’s howling into the wind. The audience is the boss, and they didn’t respond. It’s as simple as that.”When asked whether there are any plans to continue developing Sony’s universe of Marvel characters, Rothman said, “Right now, we don’t know,” adding that the studio never viewed those films as a shared universe, saying, “We never looked at it as the ‘Sony-Marvel Universe.’ We looked at if there were worthwhile movies to make with other characters. At the moment, there are none in active development.”Credit: Sony PicturesWhat Is the Sony Spider-Man Universe?The SSU began with Venom (2018), starring Tom Hardy. Combined with its follow-ups — Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) and Venom: The Last Dance (2024) — the Venom series grossed $1.84 billion globally. However, none of the films in that film series were praised by audiences and critics.The Jared Leto-starring spinoff Morbius (2022) followed. While it grossed a reasonable $167.5 million against a budget of $75–$83 million, the film received negative reviews across the board. Then came Madame Web (2024), which starred Dakota Johnson and became the most critically panned film of 2024 while earning $100.5 million against its $100 million budget.The SSU concluded with Kraven the Hunter (2024), the Aaron Taylor-Johnson-starring spinoff that grossed $62 million worldwide against $110 million–$130 million.Credit: Sony Pictures/Marvel StudiosWhy Didn’t Spider-Man Appear in Those Films?Much to the dismay of fans, Sony’s shared universe didn’t even feature Spider-Man.Recently, Brand New Day producer Amy Pascal told the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via Deadline) that she still has “hope” to see a crossover between Holland’s Spider-Man and Hardy’s Venom.As for why Holland never appeared in any of those films, the actor told the same podcast (via Collider) that there were plans “to merge the worlds” but that it ultimately “never happened”:“To be perfectly honest, Tom Rothman is a really smart guy. They were building this universe and they had these plans to merge the worlds at some point, and I think that they just never found the right time to do so. I think it was on the cards, and there were never any battles of ‘We want you to be in this movie’ and ‘I don’t want to be in this movie’. That never happened.”Sony is currently developing a fourth Venom film as a fully animated feature, but whether Tom Hardy will reprise his role as Venom is unknown.It’s also unclear whether Sony’s films are canonically connected to the MCU. While Hardy appears during a mid-credits scene in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) via the Multiverse, it was never followed up. Similarly, Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes/Vulture, the villain from Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), appears in an equally confusing mid-credits scene in Morbius (also courtesy of the Multiverse), a storyline that was never revisited, and is unlikely ever to be.Spider-Man: Brand New Day is now in theaters.The film stars Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Zendaya as Michelle “MJ” Jones-Watson, Jacob Batalon as Ned Leeds, Jon Bernthal as Frank Castle/Punisher, Tramell Tillman as Bill Metzger, Michael Mando as Mac Gargan/Scorpion, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Hulk, and Sadie Sink as the X-Men mutant Jean Grey.Do you think Sony made the right decision with its Spider-Man franchise? Would you like to see these characters return, or is it time to move on? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!The post ‘Spider-Man’ Film Series Quietly Ends Following the Release of ‘Brand New Day’ appeared first on Inside the Magic.