1. Venom and Sinister Six Movies Confirmed
With the debut of the first trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 last week, Sony made it clear that they were aiming to blow the Spider-Man cinematic universe wide open by establishing a number of villains for Peter Parker to face off against. Studios everywhere are clamoring to establish "cinematic universes" of their own after the astronomical success Marvel Studios has had with crafting theirs, so it should come as no shock that Sony aims to do the same with Spider-Man. We already have release dates for not one, but two more Spidey films (in 2016 and 2018), and early Friday Sony announced that they would be adding new films to the franchise as well. The studio has hired Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard to shape the Spider-Man universe on film, and act as a brain trust for the franchise moving forward. That piece of news isn't remarkably exciting, and was in fact kind of expected. We know Sony wants to make as many Spider-Man films as possible, and crafting a universe with linked storytelling over the course of several films is no easy task. The biggest piece of news comes with two new films announced by the studio: Venom and The Sinister Six. A Venom film has been talked about quite a bit since The Amazing Spider-Man hit theaters last year, and Kurtzman, Orci, and Pinkner (who are currently writing The Amazing Spider-Man 3) will pen the script with Kurtzman to possibly direct. Goddard, on the other hand, will pen the Sinister Six film (and possibly direct. Honestly, it's a bit early to look this far ahead considering The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is still months away from hitting theaters. Alas, that's the world we live in now, where studios greenlight sequels for sequels before anyone even sees them. Simon Gallagher wrote a post on the story for our site Friday morning when the news broke, which you can read
here for more information. And there we have it! This week's 10 biggest movie and TV news stories. What do you think of the casting news, new trailers, and sequel announcements that filled the airwaves this week? Are you excited about what's coming up in the next few years? Sound off in the comments below!