It’s the year 2014, and the mere idea of a female led superhero movie is still seen as so potentially risky that studio heads do verbal tapdances when asked directly about when they might make one. "I hope we do it sooner rather than later," Marvel honcho Kevin Feige said last week. "But we find ourselves in the very strange position of managing more franchises than most (studios) have —which is a very, very good thing and we don’t take for granted, but is a challenging thing. You may notice from those release dates, we have three for 2017. And that’s because just the timing worked on what was sort of gearing up. But it does mean you have to put one franchise on hold for three or four years in order to introduce a new one? I don’t know. Those are the kinds of chess matches we’re playing right now." Well, one studio who has been making a lot of chess moves recently just pulled their Queen out onto the board.
Deadline reports that Sony is plotting a female led superhero movie set in the Spider-verse for 2017. That’s it. There’s no word on who the character will be, only that Lisa Joy Nolan ("Burn Notice," "Pushing Daisies") is penning the script. But allow me to do some random speculating here.
With "Sinister Six" set for 2016, and "The Amazing Spider-Man 3" slated for 2018, my guess is that no matter who this character (or characters) turns out to be, the resulting project will anchor Sony’s next run of superhero films. Andrew Garfield is unlikely to return to play Peter Parker after ‘Spider-Man 3," and Sony will have to wait a while to reboot, so this could be a move towards establishing their next comic franchise. And if the studio is taking stock of the cinematic environment like you would expect it should —the excellent showing for "Lucy" at the box office, the stronger than expected female draw for "Guardians Of The Galaxy"— Sony is making a move to serve an audience that has been hugely underserved in current comic movie mania: women. Dudes will always show up, but few movies have been crafted with a female lead or viewership in mind, and this could be a smart play.
Thoughts? You know where to leave ’em.
Interesting fact: Deadline also reports that Lisa Joy Nolan, who sold a sci-fi spec called âReminiscenceâ to Legendary for $1.5 million last year, is Christopher Nolan's sister-in-law.
If this is true, then that's pretty awesome, especially with both Disney and Warner Bros. seemingly twiddling their thumbs. But I'd need a cast and a release date before I actually believe it. I've been fooled too many times before.