As we mentioned here on the Spider-Man Crawlspace, a multitude of Sony’s emails were hacked and released to the public, much to the embarrassment of the studio, and has the Co-Chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment Group, Amy Pascal, in serious hot water due to some comments she exchanged with producer Scott Rosin, among them being what movies staring African-American leads President Barack Obama might like, and calling actor-director Angelina Jolie a “spoiled brat.” Among the leaks were discussions on the future of Spider-Man as a viable film franchise, including a possible deal with Marvel Studios in which the wall-crawler would appear in a cameo in Captain America: Civil War (2016).
Well, over the last couple of days, as various news outlets have perused through pages and pages of emails, additional details regarding Sony’s proposed plans for Spider-Man’s future as a franchise have come to light:
- Had the deal between Sony and Marvel Studios gone through, the new Spider-Man films may have been produced by Anthony and Joe Russo, the brother-director team of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and who have been revealed to be the directors for Marvel’s upcoming two-part Avengers: Infinity War. The difficulty was whether the current producers, Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad, would have allowed for this to happen, but Pascal was open to the idea as it was “a discussion worth having.” Also, Captain America: Civil War would have also led into The Sinister Six movie.
- According to Latino Review, the real reason why the deal between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios broke down was not over a new trilogy of Spider-Man films. Rather, it was over co-production costs, in which Marvel proposed a 60/40 split, with Marvel paying the lion share of the cash, while also having full creative control over Spider-Man as a property. Sony Japan, however, think the deal is still on the table and can be negotiated.
- If the deal with Marvel happens, Columbia Pictures president of production, Michael de Luca, wants a different actor to replace Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker. Apparently, Sony has been none-too happy with Garfield ever since he put the blame on Sony and their executive meddling for the lower-then-expected and critical panning of Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). Sony also didn’t appreciate it when Garfield refused to attend their July corporate dinner party, where he was supposed to be seated with high-ranking studio-executives. Whether the case may be, it appears Garfield has been all but fired from the franchise.
- The rumored non-Spider-Man Aunt May film? Turns out Sony seriously considered green-lighting the project. Same for a female team-up spin-off. Marvel, however, “severely disliked” those ideas.
- Marvel, had they retained control over Spider-Man, would have regarded both the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb films as “non-canonical,” as they wanted “no baggage” going forward into future movies. They also were not interested in another origin story, and the new films would have Peter Parker already as Spider-Man. Nor did Marvel want the films to be centered around a romance, stating, according to Latino Review, they wanted them to “focus on the difficulties of being a teenager and a superhero with a romance side-story.”
- As for the planned Sinister Six spin-off, Tolmach wanted to introduce either Venom or Carnage as the main villain, as he didn’t think Venom was capable of supporting his own movie. Had it been Carnage, the idea was for Peter Parker to obtain his black suit and team-up with the Sinister Six. However, the Sinister Six would ridicule Spider-Man’s new duds, and out of embarrassment, Peter would abandon the costume, which would then be found by someone else, leading that person to become Venom.
- In an 8-page attachment, Jeff Robinov, head of Studio 8, offered Pascal suggestions for how Sony could salvage Spider-Man as a franchise, making comparisons to the James Bond. One of the documents quotes him as saying, “In the next Spider-Man movies, we can’t go back to his origin story. Think of the 25 films in the James Bond franchise; just because a new creative team comes aboard, and breathes new life into a classic property, doesn’t mean the origin story has to be retold.”
- Among the proposed directors to replace Marc Webb included Brad Bird (The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol), Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee (Frozen), Damien Chazelle (Whiplash), Joe Cornish (Attack the Block), Glenn Ficarra & John Requa (Crazy, Stupid, Love), James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy), Don Hall & Chris Williams (Big Hero 6), Phil Lord & Chris Miller (The LEGO Movie), Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki), Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World), Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World), and David Yates (the Harry Potter films).
- One of the suggested stories for the new film? An adaptation of “Kraven’s Last Hunt,” saying it would “resonate with fans” and allow them to show Spider-Man is more than just his powers, that “[he’s special because of his values, because of what drives him, because of the lessons he’s learned from Uncle Ben’s death, and because of his love for Mary Jane.”
- Robinov also wanted to explore Spider-Man as an adult, adding that “It might feel fresh to see Peter Parker juggling with adult issues. He’s done so in the comics for decades, and kids still found this fun to read.”
There’s bound to be even more details from the leaks over the next few days, so keep watching the Crawlspace for future details.
Sources: Comic Book Movie, Mashable, The Daily Beast, IGN, Latino Review, Flickering Myth
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
Amazon Music
iHeartRadio
Podbean
Amazon Alexa
Player.fm
Listen Notes
Stitcher
If Sony wants to do a Venom solo film, they should look up the “Truth in Journalism” fan film on youtube. It was done by the same guy who did the “Punisher: Dirty Laundry” short. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YDYL6oECjU
Note to Sony: Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. There were already great stories written in the comics that are waiting to be shown on the big screen. Adi Shankar took Eddie Brock’s story and made a realistic, gritty live action visualization of it that was true to the character. What ASM2 did to Peter’s and Electro’s characters was just wrong on so many levels. Peter as a skater douchebag with no values and Electro as the misunderstood monster was completely stupid. Peter has always cared about his aunt before himself and Electro was a common crook that saw his powers as a means to make money through illegal means.
#58 i think feige is upset that graduating highschool too soon loses potential for developing other characters which i hope to God that’s the case instead of peter growing up. people trust marvel but should we be able to trust them? i mean yeah they’d develop some good spiderman media but i cannot trust them in movies knowing their histories? why do people keep assuming spiderman is a kid. i know most adults are immautre and alot of people have their flaws even irrational ones despite being good natured and mature(which btw TASM series got right) but get over the highschool thing. it’s bad enough you showed it in OMD, BND, and superior spiderman now i have to read these interviews. i could understand that you want to do it to develop naturally on tv but rebooting it again with a film series and adding it to the avengers which every fanboys pointlessly want is a dumb idea.
i don’t know if i can give sony credit because their emails shown how they handle things especially with their creators and actors. i hope sony knocks it off, keep garfield and make a great spiderman series AND give us both directors cut versions because this series needs them. it can’t end being the most controversial.
having a younger spiderman again especially by marvel is a horrible choice especially on film. i can tell marvel will treat him as a joke in the avengers which by the way the concept itself is overlyhyped and pointless. he works better serialized and street level. if the characters will be in the background like in the raimi films except knowing marvel theyd have the decency of giving them characters. say what you want about the webb films but at keast they try amd develop each characters, give them flaws, and have actors being passionate even staying true to the mythos.
it’s really the reason spiderman in general works better on television especially the origin. adding expessission is a piss poor idea to do.
I have got to disagree you with there magnetic eye even though you bring up great points, Marvel adores teenage Peter Parker, they don’t give a damn about a 30s Spider-Man or heck even a mid twenties Spider-Man mind you, remember Joe Quesada is a creative consultant on the marvel movies and he will forever put Peter Parker in high school, heck even Kevin Feige was ticked off in the recent revealed Sony hack emails regarding the Spider-Man film series in which he asked one of the producers of the Amazing Spider-Man series on why they made Peter graduate in the second movie. So there you have it we are always going to have a bunch of Marvel creators who can never allow Peter move past his High School years as they were with him when they started reading Spider-Man. Sony should ignore Marvel and go with adult Spider-Man films and not be tempted to give it back to them, Marvel have proven time and time again that they don’t care about the character of Spider-Man as of 2008, hell probably even in their movie series they’ll probably make Spider-Man’s cast members be more developed then he is (similar to Dan Slott’s run). But that won’t happen but it would be so cool if Joe Q or Tom B can get over the High School Spider-Man crap, what if this is the reason the Amazing Spider-Man movies aren’t doing well.
I still think though that Marvel Studios operate separately to their print media division and that studio president Kevin Feige will have a long term vision in place that will eventually facilitate the classic adult Spider-Man.
Marvel Studios should rightfully develop the character from the beginning through high school, college and eventually into adulthood. Maybe in five to ten years time, Marvel Studios will have progressed into making a mature age Spider-Man film, the way the “Amazing Spider-Man” title had been for decades in the 616 Universe, before the throwback to High School via the Ultimate Universe title.
As much as I loathe seeing the character back in High School, I get why Marvel Studios are doing it. Spider-Man is, after all their character and they should have every opportunity to present an adaptation that is truer to the Marvel mythos.
To me Sony’s counterfeit adaptations have always come across as rather tokenistic and superficial. The notion that Spidey’s golden years were in High School is such a fallacy. It’s only like 10% of his history.
@51 – I agree with a lot of what you say. Having a younger immature Spider-Man is a really regressive move by Marvel. For some reason the rest of my post isn’t showing up. 🙁
Gonna try to post it in segments.
.
Dear Lord in heaven I hope Marvel don’t take back Spider-Man otherwise we are going to getting god awful high school movies with this character and we really need to move past this, I know people might hate me for saying this but Jeff’s idea of Spider-Man being an adult this time in new movies would be awesome which we definitely need more of but knowing Marvel they will do whatever it takes to put a stop this, I’m sick to death of everyone going bat shit crazy over how Ultimate Spider-Man is awesome (not on this site off course or others) because Peter is young in it or in any other forms of comics, television or films for that matter. No people Spider-Man works best as an adult as well and the only reason why Marvel does not like that idea is due to the fact that they are too lazy to explore that further (they did at one time). I can’t believe people like the idea of Spider-Man returning to Marvel, are you serious? Look the way that company has been treating him in the comics and tv lately, he’s a complete joke and he will be that way when he guest stars in the Avengers movie, Feige and Quesada would probably make those jackass boring Avengers the real stars of the film while Spider-Man would be the idiot of the group. Oh man I’m just thinking what if they used the Brand new day template over the new movies? Man if that’s true we will probably have movies where Peter is continuously bagging chicks and butting heads with annoying new cast members they would introduce e.g. Carlie Cooper the bitch or Vin the dickward. I really hope Sony will be smart and go with a grown up Spider-Man film plans, I know that won’t happen I just know it, Joe Quesada, Tom Breevort, Dan Slott or even Steve Wacker or always going to make sure we don’t get anything “cool”.