It’s pretty clear that Sony’s in a pickle when it comes to its sole comic book franchise, Spider-Man.  This is the series that, in concert with the original X-Men, kicked off this whole modern era of superhero movies in the first place, but the second installment in its reboot of the character, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, was the lowest grossing Spider-Man movie yet and the critical response was, well, not pretty.  Before the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony was touting an all-Spider-Man universe of its own to rival Marvel’s cinematic universe, with two more Amazing Spider-Man sequels, a Venom movie, and a Sinister Six movie all in the works and tentatively slated for release.  After Amazing Spider-Man 2 faltered, however, we have heard very little from the studio aside from moving up Sinister Six as its next planned Spider-Man movie.

Sony appeared to hit on an interesting idea recently when we learned that they were planning a female Spider-Man movie spinoff for release in 2017.  Now some rumored new details about that film have landed online, claiming that it’s actually an all-female Spider-Man movie called Glass Ceiling.  More after the jump.

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When it was initially revealed that Sony was planning a female Spider-Man spinoff, the studio appeared to be ahead of the curve.  Female-driven films are doing extremely well at the box office, especially when they’re actually good, and yet there still wasn’t a female-driven superhero franchise in the market—a seemingly no-brainer idea.  Since that time, Warner Bros. has announced Wonder Woman for release on June 23, 2017, and Marvel recently revealed that Captain Marvel will open in theaters on July 6, 2018.

But it sounds like Sony might even be going one better in its planned female Spider-Man spinoff.  Devin at Badass Digest is hearing that the studio is developing a team-up movie based on an original concept not from the comics called Glass Ceiling (tentative title).  The plan for this movie is for all the female Spider-Man characters to come together in one film.  There are no specifics as to which characters will be used, but Devin throws out Black Cat, Silver Sable, Spider-Girl, Silk, and possibly Spider-Woman as likely inclusions.

The report stresses that Sony really doesn’t have its Spider-Man plans firmed up after the disastrous Amazing Spider-Man 2 threw their franchise ideas into question, but this Glass Ceiling movie is apparently one idea that’s being kicked around.  As someone who’s bemoaned the lack of female-driven superhero movies for a while now (Marvel Studios will have released 18 films before their first superhero movie led by a female character), I’m all for this female team-up idea assuming Sony hires creatively exciting people to bring it to fruition.  I think what we learned from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is that the kitchen sink idea absolutely does not work.

But again, Sony’s Spider-Man plans are incredibly unclear at this point.  Drew Goddard is attached to write and direct The Sinister Six for release on November 11, 2016, but I’m still not convinced that film will actually get made; BD notes Sinister Six might act as a soft reboot with Spidey teaming up with the villains for a Dirty Dozen-type story, but again, who knows at this point.  There have been rumors that Sony and Marvel have had preliminary conversations about sharing the Spider-Man character, but the soonest that might actually result in a deal would likely be somewhere around 2017 or 2018.  For now, I imagine Sony is going to work hard to give this franchise one more shot.  Will Glass Ceiling be part of that effort?  We’ll see.

What do you think, folks?  After The Amazing Spider-Man 2, would you be interested in an all-female Spider-Man movie?  Which comics characters would best fit into a team-up film?  Sound off in the comments below.

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