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| By Christopher M. |
There’s been some clear signs post-Amazing Spider-Man 2 that the franchise is in real creative trouble and Sony Japan the people who pay the bills at Sony Pictures want things fixed soon. The company has been losing billions in most divisions and the studio isn’t making huge strides compared to competitors like 20th Century Fox, Paramount or Disney.
Before the Sony email hacking leaks there had been chatter of Marvel and Sony getting together for a Spidey summit in January. The studio division was being pressured by Sony Japan to work something out with Marvel to obviously help the dwindling franchise which is seeing it’s box office decrease with each installment.
We since had been trying to figure-out what was legit and what was bullshit from the Sony email leaks as many stories/rumors started flooding the film news cycle.
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| Goodbye Andrew. |
Stories started coming out like Sony wanting to reboot Spider-Man a second time without actor Andrew Garfield who would be seemingly recast. Talk of his firing become a heated topic but a likelihood considering of the piss-poor job the films had been doing.
This had been a story over at Badass Digest even before the leak, suggesting that Sinister Six would be the film Sony would reboot the franchise.
I have to assume this is a serious possibility and might be the end of Garfield as Peter Parker.
There was even talk that the studio would want to bring Parker back to high school and would mean a much younger actor would be replacing Garfield in the role.
22 Jump Street directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were linked to three different Spider-Man film projects including an animated film, replacing Marc Webb for Amazing Spider-Man 3 and being on Sony producer’s wish-list to direct the reboot. It looked very likely the pair could be taking over the franchise soon.
The Russo Brothers pitched producing this new film to Sony and was chatter of Marvel Studios stepping-in to handle it’s production. The Russos just released Captain America: The Winter Soldier last year, are about to being production on Captain America: Civil War and are apparently set to direct Avengers Infinity War. If Spider-Man is apart of the latter film, it could make sense to see them produce solo films in the future.
All things I’m sure fans would love to see happen but most of these ideas haven’t been exactly confirmed by any recent reports.
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| Game On! |
According to Latino Review, Sony has reached some sort agreement with Marvel and Spidey could indeed be apart of the lineup in Avengers Infinity War Part 1. It had been said earlier that Sony missed it’s window to have Parker a major player in Captain America: Civil War.
I won’t to go into detail about their reasoning why Spider-Man is in the film but there are some extensive spoilers for Phase Three films within that write-up. Be warned, most of the films will be spoiled if you click-on and read Latino Review’s story.
However, I can add which characters Latino Review believe are possibilities to appear in the film. They include Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Vision, Black Panther, Doc Strange, Ant-Man, Wasp, Captain Marvel, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Old/New Inhumans, Guardians of The Galaxy and any other cosmic characters.
Oh, and Spider-Man.
I assume in the films leading-up to Infinity War we’ll see the rise of Thanos with him getting his hands on all the infinity stones along with the gauntlet. As seen in the teaser footage for the film at the Marvel event back in October he will end-up getting these cosmic weapons.
This is a good move on the part of Sony as it raises the profile of the character and makes him cohesive to the wildly successful Marvel cinematic universe. Having Marvel getting involved is a huge bonus since they’ve been able to figure-out how best to use their characters cinematically.
Marvel has already shown how they could incorporate this character into their universe via The Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon series. Establishing the young hero as apart of the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D. with Director Nick Fury as his mentor.
I’m curious if the cartoon will influence any of the direction Marvel will go with their take on Spider-Man.
The only draw-back I could see is that Sony asking Marvel to make their Spider-Man films in the future could slow-down the Marvel movie slate which we just saw bumped-up to three a year starting in 2017.
Then again, this is a rumor and could very well turn out not to be the case, so keep that in mind.
