Wasn't Rothman the bigwig at Fox that made sure a third X-Men film was made whether Singer and/or Masden was aboard?
Sony Spider-Verse discussion thread
- Thread starter Turtletrekker
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The general public didn't care about Iron Man before 2008 or the Guardians of the Galaxy before 2014. They didn't care about Luke Skywalker before 1977 or Marty McFly before 1985 either. It's getting it backward to think a film needs prior audience investment in its characters to succeed. That's just the lazy shortcut. The job of a movie is to make audiences care about its characters even if they never heard of them before, even if they never existed before.
I've been saying all along -- Sony should have just not worried about creating a "cinematic universe" or playing up the connection to Spider-Man and simply approached these as standalone movies in different genres -- Venom as a body-horror monster movie, Black Cat as a sexy heist thriller, Silver Sable as a spy thriller, etc. Don't try to make "comic book movies," just make movies that can appeal to a range of different audiences.
They should have looked more into the Spider heroes rather than the villains/anti-heroes. Not every character is Venom.
We don't live in the 70s or 80s anymore. Except for horror movies, everyone only goes to see franchise films, and even then, only if they recognize a character. Comparing today's theater and film audience with that of the 70s and 80s isn't logical. The theater and film audience has changed a lot even compared to 10 years ago.
I don't think that would matter if they just got past the reflex to approach these as superhero movies. There have been plenty of successful heist pictures over the decades, so why couldn't one of them star a sexy catburglar named Felicia Hardy? Any character can be the basis of a good movie or a bad movie. It's not the category that matters, it's the execution.
I mean, there have been comic book movies that most people don't even know were based on comic books, like Road to Perdition or 30 Days of Night or Men in Black. The Blade movies were approached as straight-up horror movies rather than superhero movies.
Tell that to the audience for Wuthering Heights. If franchise films dominate, it's because the studios are addicted to making them, not because audiences are uninterested in anything else.
Yeah, and there have been plenty of non-franchise films that have been successful, with the big standouts being the Avatar movies. Granted those had James Cameron's name on them, but they were still original movies.
That's a good point, I guess it's just when it comes to these kind of movies, the big selling is usually come see your favorite characters in a movie. But I forget that there have been some, like Guardians of the Galaxy, where the characters were pretty much unknown until the first movie made them into characters that people want to see.
If it were me, I'd do a Daily Bugle film. Mid-budget, no capes. Just a newspaper, doing newspaper stuff. Maybe breaking a big story about Oscorp. It doesn't need to be a blockbuster.
Alternatively, a college movie set at Empire State built around people Peter knows. Again, doesn't have to be a blockbuster, doesn't have to have capes.
Sony can think outside the box and get creative, inexpensively, to retain their rights.
Definitely need to correct Christopher on a couple things.
Yeah, Guardians of the Galaxy was obscure.... but Marvel, having just come off of Avengers, REALLY earned the trust of audiences, so that they were more than willing to give it a try.
And Christopher clearly doesn't understand the Sony mindset ... make as much money off their Spidey characters as much as possible.
It was that mindset that poisoned my view of the Garfield movies.
While it WOULD be nice to have movies like Christopher suggested.... Sony is simply trying to milk the Max of their license . They don't care about the source material/vibe like, say, Sam Raimi did
i think a daily bugle tv show would make more sense
and also a empire state tv show would also make more sense
Sony will hopefully learn that choosing to intentionally exclude Spider-Man from movies focused on members of his Rogues Gallery or other characters associated with him wasn't the correct choice and that its okay to have more than one version of Spider-Man appearing onscreen at any given time.
Centering a movie on J.K. Simmons certainly wouldn't hurt. And doing a Lou Grant-style movie about J. Jonah Jameson is an amusing idea, since Ed Asner played both characters.
You're absolutely right, both would be better executed by television series. I was thinking in terms of what Sony could do to make sure they're making use of the characters they have the rights to in order to retain the film rights.
As @DigificWriter noted, Sony should just bite the bullet and make a non-MCU Spider-Man film with someone other than Tom Holland. While I have no interest in a Maguire/Raimi 4, it's right there, and a fortysomething Spider-Man would be something new and different with the character. Hell, it might even lead Marvel Comics to realize that Spider-Man doesn't have to be a loveless loser in his early 20s anymore.
If DC can make two different Batmans at the same time (even if I'm not quite sold on that working), I suppose there's no reason why Sony can't do the same with Spider-Man.
...but I wouldn't want Sony do their own film without Feige's guiding hand thanks to Sony's terrible track record.
...but I wouldn't want Sony do their own film without Feige's guiding hand thanks to Sony's terrible track record.
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I think there was a report recently that said Sony told Marvel they can't do a live-action Miles film until the Spider-Verse films are done.
2 of the three Spider-Man movies that have been made 'with Kevin Feige's guiding hand' have been shit, so this idea that Sony can't make good Spider-Man movies on their own is ludicrous.
Agree to disagree. I love all three films and far more than Sony's five previous attempts.
All a matter of taste, of course.
It still seems strange to me that we haven't gotten a Jessica Drew Spider-Woman movie. She seems like the most obvious Spider character who is at least semiwell know to comic fans, and who's origin and everything is completely separate from Peter, so they wouldn't have to make any drastic changes to avoid him.
What about a Mayday Parker/Spider-Girl movie as a follow up to the Raimi movies, with Toby Maguire's Peter Parker/Spider-Man as a supporting character?