Avi Arad might just be the worst thing to ever happen to comic book movies. Oh, he'll take credit for founding Marvel Studios, and we'll give him props for the small role he played in helping make movies like Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk a reality. The truth of the matter, though, is that he was there to make sure Marvel Entertainment sold toys and, in reality, he had little faith in what would one day become the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
We'd strongly recommend picking up the newly released MCU: The Reign of Marvel Studios book for further insights into why Arad was mostly a detriment to Marvel Studios in its earliest days, but have a very simple request for him today:
Avi, for the love of God, please stop making comic book movies.
Given his position of power in Marvel Entertainment, Arad was an executive producer on the best and worst superhero movies that the early 2000s had to offer. That includes the likes of Spider-Man, Blade II, and X-Men, along with dire efforts such as Hulk, Elektra, and Fantastic Four. However, he didn't come onto our radar until it was revealed that he was the one who pushed Spider-Man 3 director Sam Raimi to include Venom in the threequel. It was a mistake, but not an unforgivable one.
The Amazing Spider-Man movies followed are it's there he started exerting an even greater influence. Love or hate them, they were both a mess; that's evident from the "Untold Story" being left on the cutting room floor and The Amazing Spider-Man 2's attempt to throw the Sinister Six together in the quickest, laziest way possible. Thankfully, a spin-off and threequel were scrapped (a key plot point in the latter saw a magic potion used to raise the dead).
Arad's producing partner, Matt Tolmach, also needs to take responsibility, but it's apparent neither of them knows what they're doing.
With Tom Holland's Peter Parker firmly entrenched in the MCU - a notion recently dismissed by Arad as a "terrible" idea despite the wall-crawler starring in a record-breaking and critically acclaimed trilogy - he's been let loose to produce low-rent garbage like Venom and Morbius. Both movies look and feel like they were made in the mid-2000s, a period when Arad had a significant amount of power within Marvel. Whether he's trying to recreate what he sees as the brand's glory days or is simply an out-of-touch 75-year-old, the veteran producer is doing this Marvel Universe nothing but damage.
Alas, Kraven the Hunter, Silk, Spider-Man Noir - which, hilariously, won't revolve around a Peter Parker Variant - and more are all on the way. Arad has even set his sights back on a Sinister Six project and decided to tease it in the closing moments of Morbius; the scene, cobbled together in reshoots, is best described as both painful and embarrassing. Madame Web (there are conflicting reports about Arad's involvement, though it has signs of his fingerprints all over) is another movie riddled with outdated, cliched ideas, all of which will be familiar to those of you who had to suffer through blockbusters like X-Men: The Last Stand, Blade: Trinity, and Daredevil.
Some will point to the animated Spider-Verse movies as proof that Arad knows his stuff and, sure, that's what he'd like you to think. He's even found his fair share of box office success. Still, Sony should be looking beyond that and realising these movies could make so much more without his input. Heck, we don't know how it happened, but Spider-Man: No Way Home even ended with a sickening message that read, "The Filmmakers Would Like To Gratefully Acknowledge The Original True Believer, Avi Arad, Whose Vision Led The Way To Bringing These Iconic Characters To The Screen."
That's pure ego-stroking nonsense almost certainly included to keep him away from Spider-Man moving forward. One can only wince when thinking what might have happened had he got his way and brought the web-slinger back into the fold after Far From Home was released.
Arad has admittedly produced some incredibly successful movies and we've no doubt he's made at least a few good suggestions over the years which have paid off for these characters and the fans. Ultimately, though, he's a burden to Marvel in every possible way. The guy is even turning his sights to video game adaptations, meaning The Legend of Zelda will soon get the Uncharted treatment (yikes).
There's a reason Kevin Feige doesn't appear to have anything good to say about Arad and the fact he was very deliberately excluded from Marvel Studios' Spider-Man movies should tell you all you need to know about how he's regarded by his peers. With the right creatives, Sony can deliver excellent Marvel movies; with Arad sticking around, we can expect his continued contribution to "superhero fatigue" to play out unabated with bad movie after bad movie...all while ruining the characters fans love.
Ari, we're sure Stan Lee said some nice things to you once but, c'mon, it's time to retire before you confine more of the beloved heroes and villains he helped create to the same cinematic purgatory as Morbius.