Sony is definitely trying to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to Spider-Man. Along with working on Spider-Man: Homecoming and Peter Parker's involvement in the MCU with Marvel Studios, Sony is also starting to craft its own Marvel universe with Spider-Man characters. Along with a Venom movie (which will star Tom Hardy as the symbiote-powered anti-hero and be directed by Zombieland's Ruben Fleischer), the studio has a movie centered around Black Cat and Silver Sable in the works, and The Secret Life of Bees director and writer Gina Prince-Bythewood will be the one helming it.
Along with revealing the Black Cat and Silver Sable movie's title, Silver & Black, THR also dropped the news that Gina Prince-Bythewood will direct the anti-heroine tale. Along with The Secret Life of Bees, Prince-Bythewood's other credits include Love & Basketball, Biker Boyz and Beyond the Light. This isn't her only superhero project in the works either, as she's also directing the pilot for the Freeform series Cloak & Dagger. Thor: Ragnarok screenwriter Chris Yost is tacking Silver & Black's most recent draft, and Westworld creator Lisa Joy previously worked on the script.
Both Black Cat and Silver Sable have been antagonists and allies to Spider-Man in the comics. Black Cat, a.k.a Felicia Hardy, is best known as a talented cat burglar. She's enjoyed a flirtatious relationship with the Wall-Crawler and has gotten him out of a few jams, but in recent years she's deeply embraced her villainy and become a notorious organized crime boss. Silver Sable, a.k.a. Silver Sablinova, was originally the leader of the Wild Pack, a team of mercenaries that hunted war criminals for the nation of Symkaria. Although she's come to blows with Spider-Man several times when he's interfered with her operations, more often than not they're on the same side. While Silver Sable hasn't appeared in any Spider-Man movies, Felicia Hardy was played by Felicity Jones in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and had that series continued, she would have assumed her feline identity.
Following The Amazing Spider-Man 2's underwhelming performance in 2014, Sony teamed up with Marvel to incorporate Peter Parker into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Silver & Black and Venom will not be connected to Spider-Man: Homecoming or anything MCU-related. These Spider-centric offshoots will exist in a separate continuity, just like what 20th Century Fox does with the X-Men and Fantastic Four properties. Sony had previously intended to build a Spider-Man cinematic universe when the Amazing Spider-Man series was still running, but now the company is going about it in a different way.
Silver & Black is aiming to begin filming this fall, but no release date has been assigned yet. Keep checking in with CinemaBlend for more updates on the project as they come in.
