Sony appears to be wasting no time in furthering their own cinematic universe of Spider-Man characters. Just last month the studio parted ways with Marvel Studios over their sharing agreement for Peter Parker, aka your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man and now it hiring screenwriters for another new film featuring a character they have access to in their parcel of Spider-Man character movie rights – Madame Web.
Collider brings word that the studio has hired Morbius writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless to head up the project. Morbius is the upcoming Jared Leto-headlining film also based on a Spider-Man-related character.
Madame Web is a psychic who has the ability to forsee the future of spider-themed heroes and villains. She first appeared in 1980 in Amazing Spider-Man #210. Very old and surrounded by a web-like life support machine that helps keep her alive, Madame Web has provided counsel to not only Peter Parker but several others as well. Confined due to her age and paralysis, she often uses these heroes to fulfill missions and errands of her own.
Sony has already seen a nice return on it’s animated Spider-Man: Into The Spider-verse and it’s first non-Spider-Man dependent film, Venom. Released late last year, Venom ran up an impressive $856.1 million at the world wide box office while Into The Spider-verse earned $375.5 million. Needless to say, Sony is already at work on sequels for both. In addition to the upcoming Morbius, the studio is also developing a number of other Spider-Man related projects both in live action and animation.
Madame Web is certainly an… interesting choice for the studio to go with. Even amongst comics fans the character doesn’t have a big fan base that seems eager to see her in a solo film. But if the studio is intent on building an interconnected cinematic universe of its Spider-Man related characters – and there is no definite sign one or another that they are – then the character of Madame Web could be a useful piece in that puzzle. Her abilities would certainly bring her into contact with various characters like Spider-Man and Venom. In that way, she could almost be the equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Nick Fury character.
