Spider-Man Producers Talk Spinning Off Sinister Six and Venom

Spider-Man's world is about to get a whole lot bigger, and with it so will Sony's franchise based on the wallcrawling superhero. Actually, their plans to expand his universe will no longer put Spidey in the center of things, instead focusing on some of his most notorious villains: Venom and the Sinister Six. Last year we learned that a talent collective had been put together to oversee the expansion. That "brain trust" includes writers Alex Kurtzman, Bob Orci, and Jeff Pinker, with Kurtzman directing Venom; and Drew Goddard who will script and direct Sinister Six. Creating spinoff films based on bad guys comes with its own unique challenges, and the producers spoke about how they planned to approach it.

Producer Matt Tolmach told SFX...

Tolmach: “It’s a challenge in every sense. Obviously questions of traditional hero/villain dynamics have to be looked at. At the same time it’s an awesome challenge, because some of the greatest characters are in fact villains, and how you construct that is so much fun. People love those bad characters if they’re good bad characters, and love to watch them. And nobody’s all good, nobody’s all bad, and so where we end up with that story, I think, is a really awesome challenge, and we all smile when we think about what you can do. It’s definitely a bad-ass group of people and I think it’s going to be a ton of fun to watch them."

The challenge is finding the right angle that these characters can be seen in a positive light. For a character like Venom, who in the comics has been a hero and a villain,  it comes by narrowing his focus a little bit and considering the man rather than the symbiote. Or at least that seems to be what Avi Arad is saying here...

Arad: “Venom hated only one guy – Spider-Man. He wasn’t innately bad, he was a shortcut guy, not really into fighting hard for achievement. That’s the Venom story. Can he also be a good guy? As you know, Venom was also called ‘lethal defender of the innocent’. We had a great history with him, especially caring for the homeless, which is a very sensitive issue and something that many of us are very concerned with. Our villains all represent a different side of the misunderstood, and some of them unfortunately turned to the dark side. Venom happened to be a phenomenal character. With Eddie Brock, or if you do Flash Thompson, it doesn’t matter who is going to be inside the suit – what’s important is that a man like him is going to realise there comes a time when you wake up in the morning and say ‘How did I get here? There must be a better way.’”

The issue they will face, and this is one Marvel has struggled with in the comics, is finding a way to maintain the edge that makes these characters cool while softening them just enough. It's an interesting experiment and one I'm looking forward to seeing play out.  Next up is The Amazing Spider-Man 2 which opens on May 2nd.