Sony's Venom is coming to Disney+, but there's a catch: not everyone will be able to watch it.The Marvel blockbuster's Disney+ debut was announced on Twitter by the streaming platform's Japan account and will only be available to subscribers in that region. Fans based elsewhere in the world eager to revisit Venom will have to access the film via an alternative streaming or VoD service, depending on the situation in their respective location. While frustrating for subscribers, it's common practice for streaming platforms to offer a different selection of movies from country to country, due to pre-existing licensing agreements with other networks and services.
Headlined by star Tom Hardy, Venom was met with mixed to negative reviews when it premiered in 2018. It went on to become one of the highest-grossing films of the year, however, and laid the foundation for Sony's Spider-Man Universe. A shared universe in the same vein as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the SSU is a franchise of interconnected movies based around the Spider-Man characters that Sony owns the rights to.
Venom was followed by a sequel, 2021's Venom: Let There Be Carnage, which also performed well commercially despite a mixed response from critics. Aside from expanding the SSU, Venom: Let There Be Carnage also tied-in with the MCU through a post-credits scene that connected Hardy's Eddie Brock with the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home. In December 2021, producer Amy Pascal confirmed that a third Venom movie was already in the works. "We are in the planning stages right now," she said, at the time.
Sony released the latest entry in the SSU, Morbius, in March 2022. The film stars Jared Leto as its titular protagonist Dr. Michael Morbius, a "living vampire" drawn into conflict with his villainous surrogate brother Milo (Matt Smith). Although reviews for Morbius were scathing and the film underperformed at the box office, it has since developed a cult following. Sony recently attempted to capitalize on fans' ironic affection for the superhero blockbuster by returning it to cinemas, however, Morbius' theatrical re-release tanked, only raking in $280,000 on its opening weekend.
The studio will be hoping for better results for its upcoming slate of SSU movies, which include Kraven the Hunter and Madame Web. The former stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as classic Spider-Man villain Sergei Kravinoff/Kraven, while the latter will see Dakota Johnson portray a younger incarnation of the webhead's clairvoyant ally, Madame Web.
Source: Twitter