3) Shelve Spider-Man And Focus On Spinoffs For Now
Before the new Spider-Man rumors broke last week, the current plan seemed to be to shelve the franchise for the time being and focus on supporting heroes and villains instead. Sinister Six is next on the docket and has a November 11, 2016 release date. Then of course there’s Alex Kurtzman’s Venom film, and the recently-announced female-led spinoff planned for 2017.
In the last twelve years we’ve gotten five Spider-Man films, so the evidence of diminishing returns may have to do as much with quality as it does with quantity. Spider-Man may be one of the most popular comic book characters on the planet, but there’s only so much you can do with him on film, storytelling-wise, before things begin to feel repetitive and seeing the character on screen becomes less exciting. Audiences definitely felt that when The Amazing Spider-Man hit theaters, so perhaps giving the web head a little break would be the best course of action.
An all-villain team-up film presents problems of its own, but it’s something that hasn’t been done yet in the superhero film genre, so the sheer novelty of it is sure to pique the interest of downtrodden Spidey fans. We’ve also been clamoring for a female-led superhero film for quite some time now, so Sony could cash in on that interest and be the first studio to quench that thirst.
You know what they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder. I bet that if you left Spider-Man alone for a few years, audiences would be excited to see him back on the big screen in, say, 2018 or so. It’s not like Sony is currently at risk of losing the rights to the character, so patience and careful planning are at their disposal.