Sony wants to release a ‘Spider-Man’ film every year

If the ambitious plans of studio Sony Pictures pan out, moviegoers will be seeing a whole lot more of their favourite wall-crawling superhero.

Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal recently told Variety that when it comes to Spider-Man, the studio intends to take a page out of the Marvel Studios playbook. In addition to the upcoming “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” and the already planned sequels “The Amazing Spider-Man 3” and “4” (set for 2016 and 2018 releases, respectively), Sony wants spin-off movies featuring other Spidey characters to share a single continuity. That follows the similar plan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe featured in the “Avengers,” “Iron Man,” and “Thor” family of movies.

“We are expanding the ‘Spider-Man’ universe into ‘The Sinister Six’ and ‘Venom,’ so that we have ‘Spider-Man’ movies every year,” Pascal said.

A “Spider-Man”-related movie every year? The lack of major Marvel superheroes that Sony owns the film rights means the studio will be basing the spin-offs primarily on well known Spider-Man villains.

The studio has lined up Alex Kurtzman to direct “Venom,” a standalone tale about one of Spider-Man’s greatest foes, the alien symbiote known as Venom (played by Topher Grace in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3). The film will be based on a script based on a script co-written by Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Ed Solomon. “Sinister Six,” a movie based around six of Spider-Man’s most famous nemeses (Doctor Octopus, Vulture, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, and Sandman) is being written by “Cabin in the Woods” filmmaker Drew Goddard. Goddard, who is currently writing and producing a TV series based on Marvel’s other major New York-based superhero Daredevil, would likely direct “Sinister Six” as well.

Sony may have put top-tier Hollywood talent on “Spider-Man” spin-off flicks “Venom” and “Sinister Six,” but one question hangs over their plans: Is the franchise a deep enough property to mine for so much material?

While there is no shortage of villains to choose from in Spider-Man canon, there aren't a whole lot of other superheroes in Spidey comics. Besides Spider-Man, the only other Marvel superhero of note that Sony has any claim to is Black Cat, a Catwoman knock-off and frequent love interest of the wallcrawler. Sony previously controlled the film rights to undead hero Ghost Rider, but those rights reverted back to Marvel in 2013. Unless they decide to turn baddies into good guys, the studio will be scraping the bottom of the barrel for heroes.

Is Sony relying too much on its bread-winning superhero franchise? Probably. The Pascal quote comes from a Variety article discussing the lack of tentpole franchises that the studio has. Copying the Marvel model of superhero moviemaking is all well and good, but if you don't have superheroes to populate your cinematic world with, what's the point?