25 years ago, Marvel licensed the Spider-Man rights to Sony Pictures Entertainment for $7 million. Sony’s Columbia Pictures won the rights to the live-action Spider-Man movie (that would swing onto the big screen in 2002), sequels, a live-action television series, and over 900 Marvel characters. (The studio declined an offer to purchase the bankrupted Marvel’s entire catalogue of movie rights, sans X-Men and Fantastic Four, for $25 million.) So goes the origin story of Sony’s Marvel Universe, eventually dubbed the “Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters” and then “Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.”
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“We believe that Spider-Man is the most remarkable potential franchise that has been unmined to date,” John Calley, then-Sony Pictures Entertainment Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said in 1999.
The Tangled Web of Sony’s Spider-Man Universe
After Marvel formed its own production company in Marvel Studios and launched the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s Iron Man — built on the Marvel characters that Sony balked at buying — Sony started to untangle its web of characters around the time that Marvel Studios’ The Avengers grossed $1.5 billion.
Columbia’s blockbuster Spider-Man trilogy had earned a collective $2.5 billion between 2002 and 2007, but after director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 failed to materialize in time for its 2011 release date, Sony opted to start the franchise as The Amazing Spider-Man. After the 2012 reboot made $758 million, and 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 took in just $709 million, Sony and Marvel made another pact: to bring Spider-Man (played by Tom Holland) into the MCU.
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While Sony would retain the Spider-Man movie rights, the studio entered into a mutually beneficial deal to share Spider-Man with Marvel Studios, which would allow the wall-crawler to appear in such films as 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, 2018’s Avengers: Infinity War, and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, owned and financed by Disney, and 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, and 2021’s Spider-Man: No Way Home, owned and distributed by Sony but co-produced with Marvel Studios.
The studio planned to build out its own cinematic universe with The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but those plans were jettisoned in favor of partnering with Marvel. Instead, Sony would then launch the SSU with 2018’s Venom, the Tom Hardy-fronted spinoff that was to be the start of a shared Spider-Man universe… one that wouldn’t include the wall-crawler himself.
Venom made $856 million at the global box office, so Sony began developing its slate of Marvel-based movies inspired by heroes, anti-heroes, and villains from the Spider-Man corner of the Marvel universe, including Morbius, Silk, Black Cat, Silver Sable, Jackpot, Nightwatch, El Muerto, Madame Web, and Kraven the Hunter. While only half of those projects would make it to screen — to varying degrees of success — Sony swung head first into a cinematic universe that now appears to be as dead as Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben.
Here, ComicBook breaks down the announced and so far unmade projects from Sony’s Spider-Man Universe.
The Sinister Six
In 2013, Sony formed a franchise brain trust to “expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films” of its Amazing Spider-Man-based universe, dating The Amazing Spider-Man 3 for June 10, 2016, and setting spinoffs for Venom and The Sinister Six.
The Sony brain trust — director Marc Webb, producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, and Amazing Spider-Man 2 writers Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, plus Sony’s Men in Black scribe Ed Solomon and The Cabin in the Woods writer-director Drew Goddard — were assembled to build on the rebooted franchise.
After pitting Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield) against the supervillains Electro (Jamie Foxx), Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan), and Rhino (Paul Giamatti), The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s end credits sequence suggested Doctor Octopus, Mysterio, and the Vulture would eventually complete the lineup of Spider-Man villains in the Sinister Six.
“Until now, we have approached each film as a separate, self-contained entity, but with this move, we have the opportunity to grow the franchise by looking to the future as we develop a continuous arc for the story,” then-Sony Pictures President Doug Belgrad said at the time.
Those plans included The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 4, Venom, and the Goddard-directed Sinister Six, once dated for November 11, 2016. Of course, the third and fourth Amazing Spider-Man movies were cancelled, Venom was instead spun off into a new universe untethered to the aborted reboot, and Sinister Six has languished in development hell ever since. Still, Sony executives were still bullish on forming the Six as of 2023, especially after Spider-Man: No Way Home brought together five Spidey villains from across the multiverse: Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), Electro (Jamie Foxx), Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), and the Lizard (Rhys Ifans).
According to Spider-Man and Spider-Verse franchise producer Amy Pascal and Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group President Sanford Panitch, Sony is still planning Sinister Six. Potential members include Hardy’s Venom, Jared Leto’s Morbius, Michael Keaton’s Vulture, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Kraven, who will hunt Alessandro Nivola’s Rhino in Kraven the Hunter (out Dec. 13).
Nightwatch
By 2017, the studio announced it was mining its stable of Spider-Man-related Marvel characters and developing Nightwatch. A lesser-known character with about a dozen appearances in Spider-Man comic books, Nightwatch is Dr. Kevin Trench, who donned a
nanotechnological battlesuit worn by an older version of himself from the future. During his short-lived career as a crime-fighter, Nightwatch fought alongside Spider-Man and cyborgs Cardiac and Deathlok.
Trench first appeared in 1993’s Web of Spider-Man #97 before headlining a short-lived eponymous title and appearing as part of the multi-book Maximum Carnage crossover.
Ed Ricourt, whose credits include 2013’s Now You See Me and an episode of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, wrote the original draft of Nightwatch that was reworked by Luke Cage showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker. Spike Lee, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker of Do the Right Thing and BlacKkKlansman, was reported to be circling the project in March of 2018, but by October, Lee denied being attached to Nightwatch. There have been no updates since.
Jackpot
In 2018, it was reported Sony was developing multiple Spider-Man Universe spinoffs, including the female-led Jackpot. Another character with a convoluted backstory, the original Jackpot was introduced during “Brand New Day” in 2008’s Amazing Spider-Man #546, when Marvel relaunched the title to focus on a now-single Peter Parker (who had been married to Mary Jane Watson for decades).
While the red-haired heroine was once suspected to be Mary Jane — who famously told “tiger” Peter Parker that he hit the “jackpot” during their first meeting — she was revealed to be Alana Jacobson, who bought the identity from the original Jackpot, Sara Ehret, who had registered with the Superhuman Registration Act during Civil War. Assuming her name and mantle as Jackpot, Alana used Mutant Growth Hormones and other drugs to give her powers like superhuman strength and speed.
Alana later died during a team-up with Spider-Man, and in 2023’s Amazing Spider-Man #31, Mary Jane made her debut as the new (and current) Jackpot. As Jackpot, MJ uses a slots machine-like device to activate her random powers (as seen in the Mary Jane & Black Cat series).
“Spider-Man connects to a lot of the characters,” Sanford Panitch, president of Columbia Pictures, said in 2018. “There are villains, heroes, and antiheroes, and a lot are female characters, many of whom are bona fide, fully dimensionalized, and utterly unique.”
Marc Guggenheim, who was part of the Spidey brain trust behind “Brand New Day,” told ComicBook in 2020 that he had been writing the Jackpot movie since 2018. However, the project is in limbo.
Untitled Roberto Orci Movie
In 2020, it was reported that Roberto Orci (Transformers and Star Trek) was scripting a movie for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe that “comes from a different corner of the Marvel universe that Sony has access to.” Orci was part of the former Sony Spider-Man brain trust and, in 2013, was announced as co-writer of The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and Venom. The Orci project never materialized, and the character (or characters) it would have used remain a mystery.
Untitled Olivia Wilde Sony/Marvel Project
That same year, Sony tapped Olivia Wilde (Booksmart, Don’t Worry Darling) to helm a rumored Spider-Woman movie. Pascal, producer of the live-action and animated Spider-Man movies, was announced as producer with Rachel O’Connor (Challengers) executive producing, and the project was reported as a “high priority” for Sony.
It’s unclear which Spider-Woman (or Spider-Women) might be involved: there have been multiple characters with the name over the years, including Jessica Drew, Julia Carpenter, Mattie Franklin, and, in alternate timelines, Gwen Stacy (better known as Ghost-Spider, a.k.a. Spider-Gwen). 2024’s Madame Web featured future Spider-Women Julia (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya (Isabela Merced) under the tutelage of the clairvoyant Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), but it’s unclear if Wilde’s Spider-Woman movie is connected to Madame Web. The film flopped with just $100 million worldwide, and Sony reportedly scrapped plans for sequels.
El Muerto
El Muerto is dead. Sony announced in 2022 that Puerto Rican rapper and singer Bad Bunny, one of the most-streamed artists in the music business, would headline an El Muerto movie following his role (opposite Kraven’s Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the studio’s Bullet Train. El Muerto, real name Juan-Carlos Sánchez, has appeared just twice: in the Peter David-penned Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #6-7. A lucha libre wrestler who is granted super-strength by his mask, he would have gotten into the ring in a standalone movie once dated for Jan. 12, 2024. Despite its star dropping out in 2023 (reportedly due to conflicts with his tour), Sony confirmed El Muerto was still in development, but without Bad Bunny.
Hypno-Hustler
A street punk turned costumed criminal, the Hypno-Hustler uses his hypnotic goggles to perform mass-hypnosis at his live disco shows — and then robs the audience. Introduced in 1978’s Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #24, the character has had but a few appearances and is largely treated as a joke. But in 2022, it was reported that Sony and multi-hyphenate Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) were collaborating on an untitled Hypno-Hustler movie set in the SSU.
Glover “sparked to the musical aspect of the character and the fact that he has less Marvel canon baggage, freeing him to greater interpretations,” according to the initial report. “The project could be anything from a disco period piece to a re-imagined modern hip-hop version or even a cyberpunk future play.” Myles Murphy, the son of Eddie Murphy, was said to be penning the script with Glover starring and producing.
Silver & Black: Silver Sable and Black Cat
Sony was developing Silver & Black — teaming the thieving Black Cat with the mercenary Silver Sable — but that project stalled. Pascal insisted that Silver & Black, from attached writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood, was not yet dead even as Prince-Bythewood moved on to another superhero project at Netflix. However, in 2018, Sony said that it was developing separate Black Cat and Silver Sable movies.
“We believe Black Cat is enough of her own character with a great backstory and a canon of material to draw from to justify her own film,” Panitch told Variety that year.
“I really love that project, and I do hope it can still happen in some way. It keeps going through different thoughts,” Prince-Bythewood said in an update in 2020. “First, it was going to be the two of them, and then the decision was made to separate the two. Now, there’s a thought of ‘Hey, maybe we put it on Disney+ as a limited series,’ but I loved it more as a film with the two of them. So, my hope is that one day it can still happen.”
Silk: Spider-Society
In 2022, Sony announced it was developing a “suite of live-action television series” to air on Amazon-owned MGM+ and Prime Video, including a live-action Silk series from The Walking Dead showrunner Angela Kang.
Titled Silk: Spider-Society and centered on Cindy Moon — a Korean-American teenager with ties to the same radioactive spider that bit Peter Parker, and who has since been a key character in Marvel’s many Spider-Verse comic book crossovers — the series would follow Cindy as she “escapes imprisonment and searches for her missing family on her way to becoming the superhero known as Silk.” But the series, from Pascal and animated Spider-Verse producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, was scrapped in May 2024. Sony and Amazon-MGM are currently filming Spider-Noir, a live-action series starring Nicolas Cage (who voiced a version of Spider-Man Noir in 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse).
Kraven the Hunter is the next — and potentially final — installment in Sony’s Spider-Man Universe. Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the iconic Spider-Man villain alongside Ariana DeBose as Calypso, Fred Hechinger as the Chameleon, Christopher Abbott as Foreigner, Alessandro Nivola as the Rhino, and Russell Crowe as Kraven’s father, Nikolai Kravinoff, the R-rated Kraven the Hunter opens only in theaters Dec. 13.
