Sony's up to all kinds of spider-business today. The studio's revamped Marvel Comics cinematic universe, which includes upwards of 900 characters connected through the Spider-Man storylines, will continue this fall with the release of both the live-action Venom and the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, each of which bring relatively lesser known characters to the big screen. But Sony is now shaking up their previously established plan of cinematic attack by developing a bunch of new standalone movies.

As Variety reports, writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood's Silver & Black is no more; the pic will be broken up into two solo films, likely with Black Cat arriving first. The team-up film was supposed to introduce not only Felicia Hardy's catsuit-wearing burglar but also the war criminal-hunting mercenary Silver Sable. Now it's looking like the leading ladies will get their own time to shine on the silver screen. Unfortunately, it's also looking like Prince-Bythewood is likely out as writer-director but will remain as a producer on both standalone films. Should she leave the writer-director duties behind, Sony's on the record in saying they'll find a female director for the film(s). No final decisions have been made one way or the other yet, but there's clearly still time as Black Cat and Silver Sable are ostensibly back to the drawing board.

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Image via Marvel Comics

Sanford Panitch, president of Columbia Pictures, and the executive overseeing the unofficially named SUMC, Sony’s Universe of Marvel Characters, said:

“We believe Black Cat is enough of her own character with a great backstory and a canon of material to draw from to justify her own film."

What do you think about solo Black Cat and Silver Sable films? They'll likely be origin stories like just about every other superhero story of the last 20 years, but hopefully Sony will find interesting ways to introduce the characters to all-new audiences. I kind of liked the idea of Silver & Black, a two-hander that would have not only featured two female leads but also served as an interesting intro story in its own right. Time will tell if any of these pictures actually gets off the ground, or if Sony is just waiting for Disney to buy them--and their characters--too.

For more from Sony’s Spider-planning, take a look at these recent write-ups:

For more on Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters, check out some of these recent write-ups:

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Image via Marvel Comics