There are still no guarantees that the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters is going to take off as the studio hopes, and we’re not going to find out until next year when Morbius finally hits theaters, as Venom: Let There Be Carnage is coming armed with the benefit of a built-in fanbase as the sequel to a monster hit that raked in over $850 million at the box office.
In any case, it would appear that Sony have learned absolutely nothing from the last time they rushed to establish a shared superhero mythology as quickly as possible, only to see it go up in smoke long before the groundwork had even been laid. Ahead of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 being released, third and fourth installments had already been dated, Drew Goddard was developing Sinister Six, and Spider-Man 2099 and Silver & Black were also in the works.
The SPUMC currently has Kraven the Hunter, Madame Web, Nightwatch, Jackpot and a mysterious project set to be directed by Olivia Wilde that’s believed to be Spider-Woman all in development, with insider Daniel Richtman now claiming that a solo spinoff for Aunt May is also on the cards.
This isn’t the first time that we’ve heard of such a terrible proposition, with rumors making the rounds back in 2014 that a younger version of Peter Parker’s guardian was set to headline an espionage thriller all of her own, with Mad Men named as a direct inspiration. Think Epix’s Alfred prequel Pennyworth mixed with Marvel’s Agent Carter except set in the Spider-Man universe, and you get the idea.
However, Sony themselves were forced to debunk the story after it went viral for all the wrong reasons, so quite why anyone would think that resurrecting the Aunt May pitch seven years further down the line would generate a different response is anybody’s guess.
