Before the Sony Hack and Marvel’s subsequent deal with the studio to bring Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Drew Goddard’s Sinister Six came very close to becoming a reality. In fact, it was one of a number of spinoffs being lined up, with others including Venom and a female-led movie focusing on an unspecified group of characters.
In a recent interview to promote The Martian, Goddard spilled the beans on his plans for the movie, and while he wouldn’t reveal which villains he chose to for his Sinister Six, he did confirm that the film wouldn’t have been tied directly into the closing few minutes of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
“I felt strongly that I wanted this movie to just stand on its own. I feel like, in general, I get tired of these movies where they’re becoming too much of a puzzle for people to solve. I’m like, no, just have fun. One of the fun things is that there have been so many iterations over the years that you can just mix and match. And I can’t say who I ended up with, but that was the fun part, figuring that out.”
As for how he planned on making a movie focusing on a group of villains actually work, Goddard explained:
“When you’re doing just a straightforward superhero movie, you don’t need a lot of villains. The focus is on one guy. I think with Sinister, it’s different. To me it’s less about too many villains and more about too many antagonists and there’s a distinction. You never say, like, The Dirty Dozen has too many characters. They’re all villains, or you could argue that. But they’re protagonists. The trick with Sinister, is that I was making everyone the protagonist and less about six-on-one and more about coming at it a little differently. That was the idea.”
That’s an interesting perspective, and with the filmmaker confirming that Sinister Six would have included Spider-Man in the video above, it’s interesting to ponder how he would have balanced that with the wall-crawler squaring off against his greatest foes (it has, however, been rumoured that the movie may have followed Ultimate Six, a story which saw Peter Parker forced to work with the team).
Whether or not Sinister Six is now ever going to happen remains to be seen, but Goddard holds no hard feelings about being unable to get the project off the ground.
“Part of… but for me, the making of it is the special part. Then after that it’s the business part. Like, I want people to see these things, but it’s done. And with Sinister, you know I love that script, it was really fun. I love the artist I was working with. I’d love to make that movie someday. But if we don’t? I still got to write it. I still got to do it. And you can’t take that away from me, man.”
Tell us, are you disappointed that Sinister Six is no longer on the way? Be sure to let us know your thoughts on that and these comments from Goddard in the usual place.
