When Sony announced that not only would its The Amazing Spider-Man franchise be getting a 3rd film, but a 4th as well, most speculation as to what Marc Webb had planned for the series was no longer valid. Many were thinking about how he was going to craft a quality trilogy with the villains and love interests he had already planted. Now that he’s working outside the constraints of a trilogy, not only does he have the space to fully flesh out the characters he has introduced, but he may use it as an opportunity to introduce more heroes into this Spider-Man cinematic universe.
In a recent interview, Webb was asked about the announcement of two more films. That led to conversation about the potential for more characters, and heroes, being brought into the mix. Check out what Webb had to say below.
Well, I think this was conceived of as a trilogy so there was a defined architecture to the story we were telling and we had sort of a rough outline of what was going to happen. I think [for] the fourth movie, what we’ve discovered is there are so many ancillary characters, that have enormous, cinematic potential that there may be other ways to exploit those characters, in a way that is exciting and fun and worthwhile. It might not just be a Spider-Man movie…
You know, what was fun about the comics is that there’s an entire sort of encyclopedia of characters and stories and histories and nuances and idiosyncrasies and off-shoots. I think that that is something that seems to be really successful and has a lot of potential so it’s sort of, as yet, undefined, but intentionally so.
From the sounds of that quote, Webb is still sticking with an original trilogy plan, and then branching out to see what else the Universe has to offer. The interviewer also brought up the fact that we haven’t introduced any other heroes in the Spider-Man universe, at least on film, which Webb agreed with.
The question has to be raised about which other characters Webb has in mind when talking about “ancillary characters, that have enormous, cinematic potential.” A popular pick will definitely be Venom. He was shown in the previous trilogy, but not nearly as in-depth as most fans would’ve liked. Perhaps Webb is leaning more towards Black Cat too, maybe even doing a multi-film set-up with Felicity Jones. But who knows? The film could include Spider-Woman, Solo, Firestar, or any number of other characters.
Regardless of where he goes with it, the fact Webb has more than just a trilogy to work with is a great thing. It allows him the flexibility to take the films into areas that comic book films with more restrictions might not be able to. The Amazing Spider-Man was one of the biggest surprises of 2012, and there’s no indication that future films in the franchise will be any less enjoyable than the first one.
Is there a specific character you’d like to see a heavy focus on in the 4th film of The Amazing Spider-Man franchise? Share your picks in the comments section below.