Six months ago, Sony made fans rejoice and cringe when it moved Spiderman to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The previous five Spiderman films have all been independent entities from any other superhero universe. Yet due to internal trouble and turmoil at Sony Pictures, as well as disappointing reviews for The Amazing Spiderman 2, the contracts were signed and the deal was done.
The deal cancelled out a planned Spiderman cinematic universe, in which one of the many films would be focused on the Sinister Six, a collection of Spidie’s foes. Similar to the upcoming Suicide Squad, Sinister Six was to be directed by The Cabin in the Woods director Drew Goddard. However, when Sony handed over the rights to Marvel, all of those plans were cancelled as Andrew Garfield’s Spiderman was discontinued in pursuit of the new Tom Holland incarnation. Alas, though, the Sinister Six film may not be dead just yet.
In an interview with io9, Goddard released the following: “My vision of that movie was a summer annual, so you didn’t have to worry about continuity. I intentionally wanted a movie that didn’t have to worry about mythology and continuity. It was important to me to make a movie that could stand on its own. So the good news is, you know, [laughs], it slots in very well to any plan anybody ever wants. We just need to let a couple years go by, I think.”
Based off these comments, it would seem as though the team of villains may be working its way into the MCU after all, or at least this is in the realm of possibility now. It would make sense from a business standpoint to put out a villain centric film to compete with DC’s Suicide Squad. The other big superhero franchise, the X-Men, is releasing the upcoming Deadpool. While not a necessarily a villain, Deadpool has always been a bit of an antihero and hence will be very different from the typical superhero film.
In other news, there is finally some momentum on a Prometheus sequel. Prometheus was released in 2012 to polarizing reviews, with some loving it and some hating it. Being one of the lovers, it is very exciting to finally to see the film get a title. Titled Aliens: Paradise Lost, this new title indicates that the film will be much more related to the original Alien that Prometheus spun off from. This is contradictory to Ridley Scott’s original claims that Prometheus 2 will be even more separate from Alien than the first film.
Furthermore, Alien 5 is still on hold for the foreseeable future, so this could well mean that Alien 5 is being scrapped in favor of a more xenomorph heavy Prometheus sequel.
The idea of a Prometheus sequel was originally on the backburner and looked as though its possibilities were doubtful. However, this news comes right around the release of The Martian, which is being hailed as Riddley Scott’s return to greatness after a slew of movies that have underperformed critically and financially. Scott’s latest film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, was one of the worst movie-going experiences in recent years. Yet with all of the critical buzz around The Martian, Fox likely sees this as an opportunity to capitalize on the success of the film and to get more buzz around Scott projects.
