Sony has announced – or in some instances, confirmed the a long-standing rumor – that they will be developing several new franchises based in the current film universe of the Amazing Spider-Man. Two films that are said to be in the works are to feature Venom and the Sinister Six.
Much like in the way a brain trust was formed for the cohesive Avengers cinematic universe, the five writers consisting of Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard; producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach; and director Marc Webb are all combining their efforts to expand the Spider-Man universe beyond just the ol’ web-head. “The Amazing Spider-Man 3” is planned to go into production in about a year and it seems that at least one spin-off may not be too far behind. The plan right now is for Kurtzman, Orci, and Soloman to write the screenplay for Venom with Kurtzman directing; Goddard will write, and possibly direct, the Sinister Six film.
I enjoyed the first “Amazing Spider-Man” film. While not without its flaws, this version felt closer to the Peter Parker I grew up reading in comics, albeit, a bit different from the “Classic” version. I really like the idea of expanding on this cinematic universe to build a larger world and provide opportunites to introduce more characters from Spider-Man lore that we have not seen before (and I assure you, there is plenty to pull from). A Venom film makes sense to me, I think, if done right, the origin of this character (if that’s the route they choose to take) could easily carry its own movie; I think it would be fun to see a Venom film focusing on that character, but Spider-Man would most likely have to be involved since he is commonly so closely tied to this origin it would be interesting perhaps to see a film like this in which Spider-Man is merely a supporting character.
With regards to a Sinister Six film however, I’m not sure what exactly this film would entail. To my memory, we’ve never really seen a comic book film solely centered around the villains. Would this be two hours of them attempting to execute a dastardly deed? Would they somehow fill to role of anti-heroes for a time? This would definitely be interesting to see, but right now, my mind just can’t process exactly how this would be executed.
This is obviously good news to me, but what do you think? Do you want to see more from this Spider-Man cinematic universe? Are these character the best to start spin-offs with, or are there others you’d rather see? Sound off in the comments!