Sony says it has 7 years of Marvel movies mapped out - here are all the details on what to expect

Sony

"Venom"

• Sony will be the only studio besides Disney to own film rights to Marvel characters after the Disney-Fox merger closes.
• Sony Pictures Television chairman Mike Hopkins told Variety this week that Sony has "the next seven or eight years laid out" for its Marvel universe.
• The franchise found new life last year with the success of "Venom," which grossed $855 million worldwide.

Come next week, only two movie studios will own film rights to Marvel Comics characters.

Disney, which owns Marvel, is absorbing Fox in a merger expected to be finalized on March 20, at which point it will own the rights to X-Men, Deadpool, and the Fantastic Four. And then there's Sony, which owns the film rights to approximately 900 Marvel characters related to everyone's favorite web-slinging superhero, Spider-Man.

Sony's Spider-Man franchise is its most lucrative. Sam Raimi's original trilogy alone made $2.5 billion worldwide, before being adjusted for inflation. But a few years ago, its Marvel universe was on life support.

READ MORE: 'Venom' gives Sony an edge over Disney in its fight to keep 'Spider-Man,' according to industry experts

2014's "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" was expected to launch a connected universe of movies similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Instead, it was a critical and box-office disappointment. The following year, Sony struck a deal with Marvel Studios that allowed Marvel to include Spider-Man in the MCU while Sony retained creative control and distribution rights.

But "Venom," surprisingly, breathed new life into what the studio calls the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters.

"Venom" was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2018, raking in $855 million worldwide despite poor reviews from film critics. Now, Sony is going full speed ahead with the "SUMC." Sony Pictures Television chairman Mike Hopkins told Variety this week that Sony has "the next seven or eight years laid out" for the franchise, and that could include TV shows, as well.

What could the next seven or eight years look like for Sony's Marvel movies? The studio has several projects in development, and more that were thought dead that could be resurrected.

Below are all of Sony's Marvel movies currently in the works: