When The Amazing Spider-Man 2 gets released in just a few short weeks, it will be the second chapter in Spider-Man’s brand new feature film series, and the web head isn’t going to be the only one taking the big screen by storm. It was announced back in December that Sony would be developing two spin-off films for the franchise, one focusing on the anti-hero Venom and another on the villain collective the Sinister Six. Villain-centric films haven’t been tested by any of the other comic franchises just yet, so what is it we can expect from these films?
“Obviously questions of traditional hero/villain dynamics have to be looked at,” producer Matt Tolmach said in an interview with SFX. “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.”
Producer Avi Arad chimed in on the subject as well, speaking about the complexity of the Marvel villains and why he thinks a character like Venom will work in his own feature film.
“With Marvel characters, the villains are victims of circumstance. If you look at our villains, none of them were born like that. Our villains are nice and complex and in the world of film writing you can play with that, you can make some wonderful things out of it. The Spider-Man universe has amazing villains, they are all character driven…..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 realize there comes a time when you wake up in the morning and say ‘How did I get here? There must be a better way.'”
Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Ed Solomon will pen the Venom spin-off, which Kurtzman will direct. The Cabin in the Woods‘ Drew Goddard will write and direct The Sinister Six.
