Sometimes, blockbuster movies meant to extricate billions from American wallets can also be beautiful works of art.

Other times, though, we get a movie like “Madame Web.” By almost every metric, the Sony production was a disaster: “Madame Web” sports an abysmal 11% Rotten Tomatoes score and was a disappointment at the box office to boot.

But “Madame Web” is only one weak link in a chain: the gaggle of live-action comic book origin movies about random Spider-Man villains branded as “Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.” Even in a decade full of failed shared universes, such as Universal’s “Dark Universe” or the DC Extended Universe, Sony has something truly special on their hands — but in this case, “special” does not necessarily mean “good.”

In theory, an interconnected series of movies based on villainous comic book characters could work. Over at DC, “Joker” (2019) made $1 billion, and critical darling “The Suicide Squad” (2021) would surely have been a bigger hit if not for coronavirus restrictions and the resulting day-and-date streaming release.

Though Marvel Studios hasn’t gone all-in on a “villain” movie yet, the latest season of the Disney+ series “Loki” put up strong numbers when it bowed last year.

That said, Sony has repeatedly proven to be incapable of capturing the same magic as its rivals. Sony’s sole franchise is “Venom,” whose first two entries will be followed by a third and final installment, “The Last Dance,” this weekend.

The first two movies grossed an impressive $856 million and $506 million worldwide, respectively, but they also sport a combined Rotten Tomatoes score of 87% — six percent less than “Spider-Man: No Way Home” (2021) got by itself. The diminishing returns of the “Venom” sequel, combined with critical apathy towards the franchise, is not a sustainable formula for success.

Aside from that, the only other movies that have been released thus far in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe are the aforementioned “Madame Web” and the horrific “Morbius” (2022), which received an onslaught of negativity that Polygon dubbed a “collective internet hate watch.”

The future of this shared universe looks bleak, too. “The Last Dance” will end the only popular intellectual property that Sony has going for them, and there’s no guarantee the upcoming “Kraven the Hunter” will end the non-Venom cold streak.

Those two movies were set to begin a new content-rich era, but that’s just not happening. There’s a “Spider-Man Noir” series in active development — and that’s about it. Projects were started and never discussed again based on characters like Silk, El Muerto, Silver Sable, Black Cat, Nightwatch, Jackpot and Hypno-Hustler. (Somehow, that list is real.)

Naturally, there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding the future of Sony’s Spider-Man spinoff department. So I’d like to offer an easy fix: there should be no future!

Clearly, “Venom” was a fluke, riding on the success of its nonsense action sequences — “The Last Dance” prominently features a possessed horse in its marketing — and bizarre romantic subtext to mainstream success.

Action movies about random Spider-Man villains in a “Spider-Man Universe” that does not actually feature Spider-Man just don’t sell. As long as Sony owns the movie rights to Spider-Man — and as long as they keep licensing them out to Disney to make more Tom Holland movies — no one will care about “Madame Web.”

If Sony hasn’t already, it’s now time for it to cancel the remainder of its standalone live-action slate and focus on the animated “Spider-Verse” movies as well as their ongoing collaboration with the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, if Sony insists on continuing to make live-action movies, they should consider using one character that seems to be consistently popular: Spider-Man.

“No Way Home” demonstrated that fans still have room in their heart for Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s versions of the wall-crawler, with the latter in particular remaining a relevant movie star. Bringing back either for another full-length film would be a genuine surprise and generate millions in free marketing with a single post.

The “Spider-Verse” franchise proved in their thesis statement that “anyone can wear the mask” and remain popular, providing fertile ground for a live-action Miles Morales movie. Alternatively, Sony could score another instant win for publicity and movies in general with a long-overdue Spider-Woman movie.

But if making a good movie that people actually want is too much to ask for, perhaps Sony could make a more permanent deal with Marvel Studios. The company knows that no price could be high enough to hand Spider-Man right back to Disney, so I’d instead propose a more aggressive licensing agreement, similar to how major sports leagues license out their television rights.

Here’s my offer: Spider-Man’s blockbuster rights go to Disney for 10 years with a hefty tax — and this would include all versions of the character alongside the villains. The asking price for the web-slinger would be $10 billion and 40% of all box office totals, alongside some perks like keeping the game series exclusive to Sony’s PlayStation consoles.

Marvel Studios gets to fully integrate Spider-Man and any villains it wants into “Avengers” movies while sharing in the spoils of the most lucrative Marvel superhero ever. There are options built into the contract to renew, renegotiate or even buy out Sony’s ownership of the character if the partnership gets too difficult.

The only way Sony can possibly lose here is if it stays the course. We all know Spider-Man makes money, and it takes a special kind of franchise to squander that potential. Sony’s Spider-Man Universe (Spider-Man not included) accomplished it. The studio should never achieve that level of failure again.

Sammy Bovitz is a sophomore writing about the business of film. His column, “Boardrooms & Blockbusters,” runs every other Thursday. He is also an assistant arts & entertainment editor at the Daily Trojan.