The guys at the Wall Street Journal have good sources that run all the way from high-level economics to the entertainment sector. As such, when they report on something like Marvel movies, I'd advise their stories are taken at least as seriously as anything in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter. Amidst the fall-out from the big Marvel-Sony announcement, whereby the two studios revealed their plans to 'share' Spider-Man, the Journal have been able to flesh out a couple of key details. Their story is behind a paywall, but here are the two key points. First of all, Sony's Sinister Six is "delayed," not dead. This could mean anything from the studio just not wanting to pull the plug and call the time through to actual, honest plans to revisit the idea down the road a little way. If Spider-Man is being recast, as many are assuming (I'm not 100% sure myself, but it does seem most likely) then presumably, the villains we've seen in The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2 will be recast and redesigned too. That would wipe the slate clean for Sinister Six... a good thing, I think? More concrete is word that Spider-Man will appear in Captain America: Civil War. The Sony-Marvel announcement did say he'd pop up in one Marvel film this side of 2017, and Civil War was always the most obvious, not least because Peter Parker and his secret identity was so instrumental to the original comics. As an upshot of this, it means that Community vets Joe and Anthony Russo will be the first directors to get hands on with the new Spider-Man. Expect the Donald Glover fancasting to get back up to speed any second now. Civil War starts shooting in just a couple of months. Expect confirmation of any new Spider-Man casting sooner rather than later.
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
