The future of Sony’s Spider-Man film franchise is cloudy — for reasons including, but certainly not limited to, the writers’ strike — but at least one member of Spider-Man 4‘s creative partnership is firmly on board.
According to Comics2Film (reporting from a podcast posted by BlogTalkRadio), screenwriter James Vanderbilt is champing at the bit to get started on the series’ fourth installment. In between talking about his work on Zodiac and other projects, Vanderbilt had this to say about the next Spider-Man sequel:
“I went in on that. I really loved the films. It’s sort of an odd process, because you’re sitting down with the people who made the first three and going, ‘Well, let me tell you what to do.’ But I was lucky enough that they were interested in me, and I’m a huge fan of those movies, so we closed that up right before the strike. Once the strike’s over, I get to go to work.”
Though Spider-Man is owned by Marvel, the character’s film rights are carried by Sony, so Marvel’s interim agreement with the Writers Guild presumably has no impact on development for Spider-Man 4. It seems, however, that Sony’s ownership doesn’t extend to Spidey’s nemesis, Venom.
IESB reports that “‘the studio’ has met recently with several ‘A-list writers’ about a spinoff film” for the goopy black alien symbiote whose introduction to Peter Parker — and later Eddie Brock — was portrayed in Spider-Man 3. As IESB notes, it seems safe to assume that Marvel owns Venom’s film rights despite the character’s appearance in the Spider-Man trilogy, otherwise meetings with writers wouldn’t be taking place. There’s no word on whether Eddie Brock would appear in the film, or if Topher Grace would reprise his portrayal of the character.
To get the full scoop on both of these stories, follow the links below!
Source: BlogTalkRadio (James Vanderbilt interview)
Source: IESB (Venom film story)
