The nascent Sony Spider-verse will officially kick off later this year with the release of Venom, starring Tom Hardy. Venom is just the first piece in a universe that will presumably, be operating without Spider-Man. Fortunately the Web-Head has more than enough allies, villains and acquaintances to fill a film slate. Another Spider-verse entry that is in the works is Silver and Black, about Spider-Man frenemies, Black Cat and Silver Sable. Silver and Black was previously set to hit theaters on February 8, 2019, but it has now been removed from the calendar entirely.
This is not necessarily a bad sign because Silver and Black has not been cancelled. It's simply pushed back, and as THR reports, Sony is looking for a new release date for the film. The film's director, The Secret Life of Bees' Gina Prince-Bythewood, recently spoke to the fact that the team was still trying to figure out the script. So the reasoning for the setback and Silver and Black getting taken off the calendar seems to be to give the writers more time to get the script right. The most recent draft of the movie comes from writers Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, who have worked on Chaos Walking and Captain Marvel, respectively.
We had heard back in February that production had been delayed on the film, so it isn't entirely surprising that it won't hit that February release date with less than a year to go. We haven't heard any casting news to this point, so it sounds like Sony is really focused on finalizing the script before rushing this thing into production. With writers and a director onboard, Silver and Black did seem to be the furthest along of Sony's spinoff movies outside of Venom, so it is a bummer that we won't be seeing it quite as soon. Fortunately it isn't being scrapped, and for now, we can still look forward to it coming down the line.
Perfecting the script before moving ahead on Silver and Black sounds like the right call. Too often we see studios rushing movies to hit release dates or moving ahead without creative direction. Sony's Amazing Spider-Man movies didn't perform as well as they could have, so the studio is smart to take a measured approach to building out this Spider-verse. Sony almost certainly has other irons in the fire too, with the rumored Morbius and Nightwatch movies, and probably some other things that are in the earliest of stages that we haven't heard about yet. I think Venom will tell us a lot about the direction this universe is headed in, and depending on its success and reception, it will potentially influence what comes after.
Sony's Spider-verse begins in earnest when Venom arrives in theaters on October 5. We'll keep you updated on Silver and Black and all the latest news about Sony's Spider-Man spinoff films.
