Silver & Black Movie’s Problem Is What To Do With Spider-Man
Spider-Man's potential involvement in Sony's Silver & Black movie is one problem that needs to be addressed, according to director Gina Prince-Bythewood. Sony scrapped plans to build a cinematic universe set in the Amazing Spider-Man franchise a few years ago in favor of rebooting Spidey in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Tom Holland version of Peter Parker has since become a huge hit, but Sony has continued to develop plans to build a shared universe with the Marvel characters they own. This effort began with Venom and is not directly tied to the MCU (yet).
One of the many Spider-Man spinoffs that Sony has been developing is Silver & Black, a team-up movie that would star the mercenary Silver Sable and Black Cat. The film was announced in early 2017, and Gina Prince-Bythewood signed on to direct a few months later. Sony eventually gave Silver & Black an early 2019 release date, but the movie was indefinitely delayed in early 2018. The script has since been rewritten, scrapped in favor of solo projects for Silver Sable and Black Cat, and saw Prince-Bythewood move on to a new project.
Before the release of Gina Prince-Bythewood's new Netflix film The Old Guard, she spoke to GamesRadar about the upcoming movie. One of the topics addressed in the interview was the status of Silver & Black. The outlet asked her what future the project had, and Prince-Bythewood revealed that she isn't sure due to the changes being made after the success of the Spider-Man movies. The popularity of Spider-Man has raised questions about what role he could play if Silver & Black is ever made.
I really love those characters, I loved having them together. I thought, what we came up with was a really good, really organic way to have the two together. That world is changing so much because of the success of the Spider-Man films. There's a question of, 'Can you really have these films with Spider-Man not in them? Should he at least have some sort of part in them?' That's always the question. I've taken two years off of that for [The Old Guard] so once this gets out into the world, I hope it's a success, and then I'll certainly go back and start talking with them again.
When Silver & Black and Sony's other spinoffs were first announced, Tom Holland was unsure if he was going to make an appearance in the films. Now, it remains unclear what role he could play if Silver & Black gets back on track. But, Spider-Man is so closely connected to both Silver Sable and Black Cat (not to mention the film's reported villains), that Silver & Black could run into similar criticisms as Venom if the movie strips these characters of such connections.
At this point, whether or not Spider-Man will appear in Silver & Black is difficult to gauge, mainly because it isn't even clear if the movie will happen at all. Prince-Bythewood was scheduled to direct their team-up and moved on to The Old Guard shortly after it was revealed Silver Sable and Black Cat could get solo movies instead. Neither of those standalone titles has made any progress since, so it is possible Sony could reconsider making Silver & Black again. Prince-Bythewood has even suggested that the movie could become a Disney+ series, although how that would work within the current Disney/Sony Spider-Man deal is unknown. But, since that deal allows Spider-Man to "cross cinematic universes," according to Kevin Feige, fans shouldn't count out seeing a Spider-Man cameo in Silver & Black if it happens.
Source: GamesRadar