Stillanerd’s favorite movie news site BirthMoviesDeath has posted a write-up with comments from Marvel’s Kevin Feiege on what to expect about Spider-villains in the upcoming Sony/Marvel reboot and also about the overall tone of the movie. From BirthMovieDeath’s Devin Faraci:
I hope Kevin Feige agrees with me. I think he does. Talking to him this weekend at the Ant-Man junket I asked about this aspect of the Spidey story and whether we might see more of the soap opera side of Peter Parker’s life in the next film. Feige dropped an atom bomb of a reference in his reply: John Hughes.
“It’s the soap opera in high school, and those supporting characters, that are interesting,” said Feige. “Just as we hadn’t seen a heist movie in a long time, or a shrinking movie in a long time, we haven’t seen a John Hughes movie in a long time. Not that we can make a John Hughes movie – only John Hughes could – but we’re inspired by him, and merging that with the superhero genre in a way we haven’t done before excites us.”
More:
For Feige that aspect – the soap opera, the supporting characters – means that the stakes in a Spider-Man film are not only about the machinations of the villain.
“What’s fun about a Spider-Man movie for us – I think you pointed this out, that Inside Out had the biggest stakes of any movie this summer,” Feige said, referring to this editorial. “Stakes don’t need to be end of the world. Oftentimes, in our films, it is, and in our future films Thanos doesn’t work small. But sometimes the stakes can just be ‘Will this little girl grow up to be healthy and well put-together, or are there too many issues for her to overcome?’ That’s HUGE! That overrides a threat to reality itself. And I think Spider-Man straddles that line in a fun way in his comics. What we wanted was a movie where the stakes could be as high as ‘This bad person is going to do this bad thing, and a lot of people could die’ OR ‘You don’t get home in time and your aunt is going to figure this out, and your whole life is going to change.’
“Particularly at that age, in high school, everything feels like life or death. The tests feel like life or death. Coming home from being out with your friends seemed like life or death. The stakes are high at that age, for the same reason you talk about in Inside Out.”
And about those villains…
But enough about the soap opera – we all know what’s going to sell a Spider-Man movie, and that’s the bad guy and the action. We’ve had five Spidey movies with eight villains, including three iterations of the Green Goblin/Hobgoblin. Is the next Spider-Man movie going to be bringing back familiar villains?
Feige says that Spidey has a deep bench of rogues. “That’s the advantage,” he told me. “Right now we’re interested in seeing villains we haven’t seen before.”
So no Green Goblin this time around (although don’t be shocked if Harry and Norman Osborn show up). Could it finally be The Vulture’s time to shine? Or will there be a Kraven the Hunter or a Mysterio or a Molten Man in our cinematic future? I’d love to see Spider-Slayers, or maybe the Chameleon teaming up with a villain who offers more of a physical threat.
Feige also commented on the possibility of Spidey springing up in one of Marvel & Netflix’s series, such as Daredevil:
“My general answer to that is never say never,” Feige said. “But our current Sony deal is very specific – we’re producing the standalone film, with a certain amount of back and forth allowed.”
Never say never is a good thing.
Hat tip for the heads-up to both Erick Theman via Facebook and… our very own PartyHardy, aka podcast panelist Ashley (also via Facebook!) Thanks, you two!
–George Berryman!
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I’ll second Mysterio. They could have a lot of fun with his illusionary abilities and for the reasons ryan3178 stated.
I hope Mysterio is the main villain not because he’s my favorite Spider-Man villain but because he shows the side of Spider-Man where he has to use his brain to figure things out. Mysterio is the master of illusion, he loves the show, framing Spider-Man, making up a big dramatic battle where he will will then take his bow at the end of the show to prove he’s the man. That would be great for Spider-Man.
As long as they don’t immediately go with Venom. I’m a bit tired that Marvel seems to think they need villains who resemble the hero, as in Iron Man, Hulk and Hulk, Thor, and now Ant Man.
I’m sure high school mj and harry are gonna show up but I hope and pray that this isn’t an Ultimate Spider-Man film and that Mary Jane is done right.
As for villains my hopes for a MAster Planner movie are gone but I think Vulture or Mysterio could work. Mysterio hasn’t got powers and if he pulls the classic ‘pretend he is Spider-Man’ scheme it could be really meta. Kraven and the Vulture aren’t impressive on their own but they did team up in the comics and the animal theme is there so it could work. And we’ve never seen a Spider-Man film with just 2 villains before
Using John Hughes as an influence for a film set in high school, and chock full of high school drama, seems like a good choice :).
Feige’s remark about focusing on the high school supporting cast comment is good, considering Flash disappears after every first movie and Liz has never shown up. I wonder if they’ll introduce MJ and Harry earlier and in Peter’s high school years, or just build up to them? Maybe a younger Betty Brant at the Bugle?
Going for villains who haven’t debuted on the silver screen yet makes sense, and means we’ll likely get to the rest of the classic Rogues sooner, and I expect the first one we’ll see will be either Chameleon or Vulture. They were the first two Supervillains Spidey ever tangled with, so having one appear in his MCU debut would be fitting ;).
That, and considering all the times Vulture’s been close to appearing in the movies, maybe it’s about time for him to get his shot?
Though I also imagine that we might see other classic Rogues, like Osborn and Octavius, make cameos or appearances to set them up as characters and build up to them becoming Supervillains. I’ve seen it said elsewhere that Osborn could be the Thanos of the Spider-Man movies, which would be appropriate.