For months, writer/director Drew Goddard worked with Sony to make The Sinister Six have their own big-screen adventure in 2016. In light of the recent Marvel/Sony team-up, however, that project ultimately seems to have fallen to the waist-side. It doesn't look, though, like Goddard will walk away empty handed, however.
In fact, Goddard is now assigned to write and direct the new Spider-Man movie for the studio, tentatively titled The Spectacular Spider-Man, as Latino Review exclusively reports.
It's been an interesting journey for Goddard and Marvel, to say the least. Initially, The Cabin in the Woods director was the showrunner of their upcoming Netflix series Daredevil, but he left that project in order to write and helm the Spider-Man spin-off The Sinister Six instead for Sony.
As seen by the end of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, this was intended to be the next step in the evolution, with a June 2016 release planned. Of course, in light of the sequel's underwhelming box office results and the poor response of the film from both fans and critics, Sony decided it was finally time to have Spidey join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This, of course, put all of Sony's upcoming Spider-Man related projects in flux, save for the newly-announced reboot film set for release on July 28, 2017.
According to the reports, long-time producer for the Spider-Man series Avi Arad is officially out, although he'll still receive an executive producer credit as he instead works on his upcoming reboot of Ghost in the Shell. As a result, all those Spider-Man movies in the works have, as mentioned above, fazed out while producer Amy Pascal works with Kevin Feige on Spider-Man's next cinematic steps.
Furthermore, it appears Spidey, in this new movie, doesn't have an origin story. Instead, he just exists as is from the beginning, and, as mentioned in previous reports, Marvel/Sony want a younger, perhaps unknown actor in the role to grow-up in it and play the superhero for multiple features. This first film, according to reports, has Spidey allegedly fighting Iron Man while he "auditions," as sources note, to be in the Avengers. Meanwhile, the Sinister Six still form together in this first movie and may still get their spin-off later down the road. So it looks like Goddard gets to work with the Sinister Six after all.
All of this is more or less speculation at the moment, as no studio heads have confirmed the news up front. Latino Review, however, has a decent track record and good sources on this matter, plus this news does make sense. While Dylan O'Brien and Logan Lerman were previously mentioned as frontrunners to play Spidey in the new movies, it appears they may be both too old and too busy for what Marvel had in mind. They note casting won't go underway for at least a couple months, so look for more information then.
There is talk, though, that this new Spider-Man will not be white and instead be mixed-race or black, just like Miles Morales in the Ultimate comics. At this point, one can hope that's the case if they truly want to have a third Spider-Man.
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