After Marvel’s success every studio wants their own superhero expanded universe, with Fox looking at how they can evolve X-Men and Fantastic Four, DC massively upping how they intend to use their characters on screen and Sony hinting at the fact they want to explore the Spider-man universe.
Now those plans are moving forward as the studio has revealed in a press release they are already working on movies based around Venom and the evil Sinister Six. Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard have been brought together to created ‘a franchise brain trust to expand the universe for the brand and to develop a continuous tone and thread throughout the films’.
Kurtzman & Orci (Star Trek, Transformers) & Pinkner are writing the screenplay for The Amazing Spider-Man 3. The movie will shoot next autumn for release on June 10, 2016, with Marc Webb likely to direct the movie. Kurtzman & Orci & Solomon meanwhile will write the screenplay for Venom, which Kurtzman will direct. Goddard (The Cabin In The Woods) will write The Sinister Six, with an eye to also directing.
Sony had previously announced Amazing Spider-man 4, but that was questioned recently when Andrew Garfield said that had ‘nothing to do with me’. Some wondered if that meant he had no intention of extending his contract past the three films he initially signed up for, but it actually appears it’s more because Spidey 4 will actually become either Sinister 6 or Venom and may not feature his character at all.
The Bourne Legacy got off to a decent start at the US box office, scoring a $40 million three-day opening. That’s less than the previous Bourne sequels, but that’s not surprising considering the lack of Matt Damon in this one, but it’s still ahead of the first film, which took $27 million on its first weekend. The real question is whether the movie will have legs, which remains to be seen, but the film has had okay reviews and may well do well in the coming weeks.
The Dark Knight Rises has handily won the US box office race for a third week running, taking $36 million for a very good take so far of $354 million. Batman beat out newcomer Total Recall, which took $26 million. That was at the lower end of expectations, and with suggestions it’s not going down well with audiences, it’s unlikely to keep its grosses up in the coming weeks. It may now be hard for Sony to make back the $125 million is spent on the 2012 makeover of Recall.
Going into this weekend, there was a lot of debate over whether the US public was still put off going to the cinema by the terrible events in Colorado. In the end, while there probably was still a bit of a knock on effect, it wasn’t as bad as some had predicted. The Dark Knight Rises handily won the weekend, taking another $60 million for a 10 day total of $289 million, just behind the $313 million The Dark Knight had taken at this stage.
This weekend’s box office numbers were understandably delayed out of respect for the victims of last week’s Colorado shooting. However now they’ve been released, with The Dark Knight Rises taking a massive $160 million, the third biggest opening weekend ever after The Avengers and Deathly Hallows Part 2, and the biggest ever for a 2D release.
Although Sony might have been worried their reboot of Spider-man might not work, they can rest easy, as while they’d predicted it would do about $120 in its first six days, it actually took $140 million. That’s behind the opening haul of any of Sam Raimi’s Spider-man movies, but comes close to the first film’s take of $144 million. It’s no doubt a good start though, especially as around the world it added another $200 million, so its global box office now stands at a very healthy $341 million.
Several months ago Sony announced that they were already working on a sequel to The Amazing Spider-man, and now, with the reboot making mega-bucks around the globe, they’ve confirmed this will be the first part of a trilogy.
I have a feeling Andrew Garfield might be my Crush Of The Day pretty often in the next few months, especially now that The Amazing Spider-man has hit cinemas. However after I saw the pic above on the film’s