Orci teases 'anti-hero' approach, new origins in Venom and Sinister Six spinoffs

Contributed by
Jan 16, 2014

After seeing what Marvel and DC are cooking up with expanded universes, Marc Webb and company are doing the same thing with Amazing Spider-Man — and it sounds like they have a very unique approach to flesh out Peter Parker’s world.

Writer Roberto Orci (Star Trek, Fringe) is right in the middle of those plans, which include three more Amazing Spider-Man sequels, a Venom spinoff and a Sinister Six standalone film. Needless to say, he’ll be busy for the next decade or so.

Though three new Amazing Spider-Man sequels make a fair amount of sense, considering the character's fame, things get interesting with Venom and Sinister Six. Both projects seemingly focus on villains from Spidey’s rogue's gallery, which seem like odd choices to anchor a movie — let alone two separate spinoffs.

So how will it work? Here’s what Orci told IGN about the plan:

"That's the discussion we're having right now; how exactly do you do that, and how do you do it without betraying the audience and making them all mean? Drew Goddard [Cabin Fever] is going to be writing that one, so it's kind of his problem. [Laughs] I'm kidding. We're all working on each other's stuff. So we want to be true to it, but there are some antiheroes in this day and age. There's been examples of that even on TV -- Vic Mackey on The Shield, one of the great antiheroes of all time. There are ways to milk that story. Audiences have seen everything. They've seen all the good guys who never do anything wrong. Is there a story in seeing the other side? That's the challenge, and that's the fun. I'm not sure how we're going to do that yet…

One of our old sayings always is ‘Whatever you're afraid of, go there. Follow the fear. Don't turn away from the fear.’ So what you're saying is exactly the reason why we're doing it. Like, let's try and challenge ourselves. Do we think of ourselves as ballsy? No. We're the luckiest guys in the world. There's no courage involved in this. [Laughs] But thank you for saying so. But you're raising the correct point, which is head towards the difficult stuff.“

One way they plan on keeping all those baddies, and sequels and spinoffs, connected? Tie it all back to Oscorp, which has been involved in all sorts of badness throughout Spider-Man’s decades-long comic run. Orci teased that that approach could also bring some changes to some popular villain origin stories as well:


Amazing Spider-Man 2 opens May 2, 2014. Do you think the franchise has the legs to sustain it through all these sequels and spinoffs?


(Via IGN)

Make Your Inbox Important

Like Comic-Con. Except every week in your inbox.

Sign-up breaker
Sign out: