My pop culture Spidey Sense is tingling, so this week’s issue of Entertainment Weekly must have been taken over by The Amazing Spider-Man 2, where a few details and confirmations have been mustered on the pages therein. We’re not entirely focused on Marc Webb’s sequel in particular, though, as Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal and producer Avi Arad took some time to talk about the ridiculously anticipated dark side of that cinematic universe and boosted our confidence in the reality of Sinister Six and Venom features coming in the future. I was beginning to think we’d have to put a call in to Kraven to hunt down some facts.
While the Venom feature wasn’t namechecked, Pascal is clearly confident in the other big baddie spinoff. "At the tail end of [The Amazing Spider-Man 2] we set up some of the other characters that will probably end up being in the Sinister Six," she told EW. "We’re going forward on all fronts." This doesn’t exactly mean everyone is rushing into production on it right now, of course, but it hints that the villain overload that ASM2 has been hinting at might just be a bridge to the standalone film. Not that I’d think Sony/Columbia would be crazy enough to build a Sinister Six out of the most obscure Spidey foes, but it’s just nice to know they are trying to be organic about it.
Arad delves more into the studio mindset of dedicating entire films to less reputable comic book characters like Venom. "Villains can be very entertaining," he said. "It’s not like somebody’s born and they’re a villain. Something happens and it changes their lives. Some people can deal with it – they become the heroes. Some people can’t and hate the world because of what they felt was done to them – they become the villains." Does that mean Venom will have a more humanist introduction in this franchise, or will he just be an alien that couldn’t deal with changes?
And it’s something of a big change for Sony/Columbia, whose cinematic history has given us memorable villains like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man and Misery’s Annie Wilkes – plus Raimi’s Spider-Man enemies – but not much else. Movie audiences have been siding with anti-heroes for years, so it’s high time someone with zero moral values gets to sit front and center. We’re not expecting Sinister Six to be The Godfather or anything, but we wouldn’t mind if Doctor Octopus added Michael Corleone to his evil sextet. You can find out more about it in the new EW issue, seen below.
Let us know in the comments who you want to see at the forefront of Sinister Six and web your way into theaters on May 2 when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is released.
