According to Jeff Sneider over at Collider, Sony is beginning to develop a movie based on the Spider-Man supporting character Madame Web with writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who wrote the screenplay for next year’s Morbius movie.
Anyone who has followed the long and sordid history of Sony Pictures and all the Spider-Man related movies they’ve tried to get off the ground over the past five to ten years might read the above paragraph cautiously and with a little bit of cynicism. After all, where is that fabled “Sinister Six” movie? Or the one starring Black Cat and Silver Sable? Or maybe it’s just now a Black Cat movie?
Sure, Sony did eventually get a Venom movie made with Tom “Bane” Hardy and Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, but it took a VERY long time, and we’ve yet to see a single frame of what Jared Leto might bring to the role of Morbius, Spider-Man’s vampiric frenemy. So far, none of these characters have even interacted with any of the many version of Spider-Man, let alone the current one, played by Tom Holland.
Sazama and Sharpless are the creative force behind Netflix’s recent Lost in Space reboot, and they also wrote Dracula Untold, The Last Witch Hunter, Gods of Egypt, and received a story credit on Saban Films’ most-recent Power Rangers movie. (I will refrain from commenting on the quality of the three of those four movies that I have actually seen.)
For those unfamiliar with the mainstay character Madame Web, she was introduced way back in 1980’s The Amazing Spider-Man by writer Denny O’Neill and artist John Romita Jr. “Madame Webb” was the name given to Cassandra Webb, an elderly mutant with precognitive powers who would often help Spider-Man deal with some of the more supernatural elements of being Spider-Man. At first, she was just called upon to help find a kidnap victim, but she became more and more entrenched into the Spider-verse often warning Spider-Man of malevolent dangers affecting him and his Spider-family.
Besides regularly appearing in the comics, Madame Web will also be known by those who have watched some of the Spider-Man animated series over the past few years, as well as appearing in a number of video games.
We’ll have to see if anything comes out of this planned script or it just becomes another Spider-project sitting on another Spider-shelf somewhere, but regular Spider-Man producers Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach (responsible for most of those spin-offs) might eventually get involved as producers for this movie as well.
