Last night around midnight, Sony officially announced their plans for an expanded cinematic universe surrounding the Spider-Man character. Already set for a May 2, 2014 release is The Amazing Spider-Man 2 with The Amazing Spider-Man 3 also dated for June 2016. Now Sony has brought in screenwriters Alex Kurtzman (Star Trek Into Darkness, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Roberto Orci (Star Trek Into Darkness, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Jeff Pinkner (“Fringe”, “Lost”), Ed Solomon (Charlie’s Angels, Now You See Me) and Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) to collaborate and develop the expanded universe, which will include Venom, which Kurtzman will direct, and The Sinister Six, which Goddard is writing with an eye to direct.
Many will remember Topher Grace‘s turn as the Venom character in Sam Raimi‘s Spider-Man 3, while the Sinister Six has yet to find it’s way to the big screen, though it has already been teased as having a part in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (see below). The group is a band of supervillains in the Marvel Comics universe made up of Spider-Man’s foes.
Already Kurtzman, Orci and Pinker are writing The Amazing Spider-Man 3, which the studio hopes Marc Webb will return to direct and we already know Andrew Garfield will be back as Spider-Man. However, this leads to an interesting quote from Garfield recently when asked about the possibility of a The Amazing Spider-Man 4, which is expected in 2018. Garfield told Yahoo, “That’s all news to me… I’m under contract for another one after this. As far as a fourth one… that’s not anything to do with me.”
There isn’t a whole lot else to report, though it was expected Sony would attempt to create a larger universe, just as Fox is planning and Marvel Studios already has with their The Avengers franchise. It will be interesting to see if any of them can be as successful as the current Avengers franchise as even Warner Bros. is attempting to mimic the same thing with their DC universe of comics beginning with Batman vs. Superman in 2015.
