Sony Developing Spin-Off Movies for Venom and The Sinister Six

Sony seems to be buzzed by their own Spider-man universe and so they have been planning spin-off movies for Venom and for The Sinister Six. Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (who wrote the Transformers movies), and Jeff Pinkner will be writing Venom, and Kurtzman will direct. Drew Goddard (who co-wrote and directed The Cabin in the Woods) will be writing the screenplay and will possibly direct The Sinister Six. It should also be noted that Goddard is also attached to write and direct Marvel’s 10-episode Daredevil series for Netflix. [hit the jump to continue]

VENOM
Sony is bent on developing several new projects in the Spider-Man franchise, with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard to collaborate on overseeing the developing story over several films that will be produced by Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach.  The five writers, along with the two producers and Marc Webb, have formed a franchise brain trust to expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films.

Under the deals, the studio announced that Kurtzman & Orci & Pinkner are writing the screenplay for The Amazing Spider-Man 3, which the studio hopes Webb will return to direct; the film will go into production next fall for release on June 10, 2016. In addition, the team will build on the cinematic foundation laid by Webb, Arad, and Tolmach in the first two movies. They will expand the franchise as Kurtzman & Orci & Solomon will write the screenplay for Venom, which Kurtzman will direct.

SINISTER SIX
Goddard has officially been set to direct The Sinister Six for Sony.  This is certainly Goddard’s most ambitious undertaking yet, as he only just made his directorial debut with the excellent 2012 horror deconstruction The Cabin in the Woods.  He got his start writing for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and subsequently wrote for shows like Angel, Alias, and Lost before penning the screenplay for the 2008 film Cloverfield.

In the comics, the Sinister Six refers to an alliance of Spider-man villains, whose original lin-up includes: Doctor Octopus, Electro, Sandman, Mysterio, Vulture, and Kraven the Hunter. Of course, the movie version's line-up may differ. The upcoming The Amazing Spider-man 2 is obviously laying the groundwork for the Sinister Six what with all the numerous villains. Let us enumerate them: we have Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), and Rhino (Paul Giamatti), from the previous movie we already have The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) who may make a comeback. That's four all-in-all. With plans for the Venom spin-off surfacing, we can already make a competent guess that we'll be seeing him soon. So who else can they add? Kraven the Hunter? Vulture? We may get the answers or possibly clues to the answers when this upcoming movie comes out. 

No timetable is given for when Sinister Six might be released, but it was recently revealed that Sony plans to release a Spider-Man film every year.  The first official gap appears between The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2016 and The Amazing Spider-Man 4 in 2018, so it’s possible that The Sinister Six could see a release in 2017 if Venom doesn’t take that slot instead.  Alex Kurtzman, who co-wrote the screenplay for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and The Amazing Spider-Man 3 with Roberto Orci, is attached to direct the Venom spinoff.

OUR OPINIONS...
If you ask me, I think Sony is getting over-excited about its product before even getting the chance to study how its audience will react to this upcoming movie itself. Sure they do have a potential goldmine with such a marketable material that is the character of Spider-man. But will they manage to pull off the same discipline of balancing artful workmanship and flashy spectacular eye-candy the way the Marvel Studio movies did? (Remember, there's a difference between the Marvel Studio movies and the Fox-owned and Sony-owned Marvel movies) If they fail to do so, they could still hope to have the same kind of success the Transformers movies have: Box office success despite lousy film workmanship.

Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens in Philippine theaters April 30.