With Spider-man’s upcoming introduction into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, many had thought that Sony would be completely trashing any plans they had been working on in terms of their Sinister Six and Venom franchise spin-offs. Apparently that is not the case, and Sony plans to simply re-work the concepts to fit into the MCU. While I don’t think this is necessarily the best play (I see it as more of a cash grab than anything), the more I think about it, the more I see a possible way for Sony to properly pull this off. I think that taking a page of out Marvel’s playbook in terms of their long-form storytelling and franchise connectivity could actually make these planned films work.
Part 1: Captain America - Civil War
It is all but confirmed that Civil War will contain Spider-man’s first appearance within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. With so many other plot threads to cover in that film (Bucky, Black Panther, the actual Civil War itself, and possibly Captain America’s death), I think they need to tread very lightly with how large of a role Spider-man is given.
One way to handle this properly is to relegate him to the OPENING scene of the movie. The film can open with a small avengers team handling an attack by characters like the Vulture and Mysterio. This type of villain crossover is common in the comics, and would take advantage of the new Marvel-Sony character crossover partnership. Plus, I think that an Iron Man or Falcon chase sequence vs. Vulture could be pretty cool.
This scene would have the arrival of Spider-man, who the Avengers have never seen or heard of before. He will turn the tide of the attack and help apprehend the two villains. When the avengers try to talk to him afterwards to find out more about him, he swings away with a “friendly neighborhood spider-man” quip and not much else. This can cause the first disagreement between Iron Man and Cap about the safety of having a clearly immature yet completely masked vigilante running around in the world with superpowers.
This type of scene multiple functions. It jumps right into the action of the film, introduces the new Spider-man in costume plus some of his villains without trying to explain the Peter Parker side, seeds the difference of ideals between Iron Man and Cap, gives Spider-man a role in core of the Civil War conflict, and only takes up about 10 minutes of the film. The rest of the script can go as Marvel had originally planned before the Sony deal.
Part 2: The Spectacular Spider-man (solo film)
This is where Sony and Marvel can finally get down to the Peter Parker side of things. After a quick opening credits origin montage (like in The Incredible Hulk), we can jump right into Peter Parker already existing as Spider-man.
The villains for this movie could be Rhino and Sandman, with Doc Ock being introduced as the brains (like in the criminally canceled Spectacular Spider-man cartoon). In that show, Doc Ock was attempting to create a super-soldier body armor, and used street criminal partners Flint Marko and Alex O’Hirn as test subjects. His first attempt at the armor application was to spray the test subject with particles, which when tested on Flint Marko created Sandman. His second attempt involved applying the armor as a liquid on Alex O'Hirn, which created Rhino. This type of origin would provide a link between these three main villains, while also working thematically (Sandman and Rhino both have great power, but very little intelligence or responsibility).
In the third act of the film, Peter Parker would encounter the black costume in Dr. Octopus’s lab. This suit would have been Ock’s attempt at a living bio-version of the super-suit he was developing. While the bio-suit had killed all test subjects beforehand, Peter’s altered DNA (from the spider bite, not his dad) would somehow stabilize the suit allowing the wearer to survive. The film would end with Rhino and Sandman being locked up with Mysterio and Vulture (or whoever they use in Civil War), and Peter keeping the black suit. The film could also seed the introduction of Eddie Brock and his hatred of Spider-man / Peter Parker.
Part 3: Sinister Six
This film would start with Doc Ock (now with his signature arms) breaking Rhino, Sandman, Vulture, and Mysterio (again, roster could be changeable) out of their prison. His motivation would be to capture Spider-man, both to reclaim the now stable bio-suit, and to analyze Spider-man’s blood to see what caused the stabilization.
This film’s viewpoint would be mostly from the villains perspective, much like how the awesome animated film “Assault on Arkham” focused mostly on the Suicide Squad instead of Batman. This could provide an interesting perspective by showing their different motivations (a big score, revenge on spider-man, doc ock’s obsession, loyalty to each-other, or lack thereof). The first half of the film would see the five villains facing off against the increasingly angry and violent black suited Spider-man. This would lead to his decision to remove the black bio-costume once he realizes that it is affecting his mind (also like in the Spectacular Spider-man show). Once removed, the suit would bond to Eddie Brock, turning him into Venom, who would join the villains in their hunt to capture Spider-man to fully form the Sinister Six. The finale of this film could have Spider-man getting help from other MCU heroes (like in the Ultimate Six mini-series), and the US government capturing Venom and removing the bio-costume.
Part 4: Venom
This film could follow the Agent Venom storyline where Flash Thompson is given the captured Venom suit by the government to carry out missions, but is in a constant struggle to maintain control over the living suit. Eddie Brock could be further used in this film as one of the antagonists with an obsession to either re-claiming the black suit, or find a suitable replacement (opening up the doors to the possibility of Carnage, Anti-Venom, Toxin, etc.)
Now I know that this all is a fan fiction narrative, but I think it would actually work in terms of keeping Sony’s plans at setting up a Spider-man mega-franchise within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I just really hope that they take a step back and let Marvel Studios do their thing in terms of the writing and inter-connectivity, or else the entire Spider-man franchise could once again backslide into the position it’s in right now.
So what do you think? Does my fan-plot suit the MCU? Do you want to even see a Sinister Six or Venom movie without much Spider-man in them? WILL J.K. SIMMONS BE ALLOWED TO RETURN AS J. JONAH JAMESON???
Sound off in the comments.