Back when The Amazing Spider-Man universe was underway, Sony had big plans to build up to Sinister Six. In fact, that seemed to be what The Amazing Spider-Man movies were building to in the first place, although at one point Sony decided they should just go ahead and make the film with Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods) attached to direct. Ultimately, that all fell apart once The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed and the studio decided to partner with Marvel on rebooting the character.
But Sony isn’t giving up hope on building movies around Spider-Man’s villains. According to THR, the studio is eyeing films based around Mysterio and Kraven the Hunter. For those not familiar with the Spider-Man villains, Mysterio is a master of illusions and Kraven the Hunter is, as his name suggests, a hunter who believes that Spider-Man is the greatest game in the world.
The idea is rather than just launch right into Sinister Six (which has been shelved), the studio wants to build to the movie gradually. On the one hand, that’s a smart bet. Audiences aren’t chomping at the bit for a supervillain crossover movie (especially after Suicide Squad received less than positive responses despite adequate box office), so you may as well take your time and get people to invest in the individual characters rather than just six random supervillains. On the other hand, Sony seems to be building a house of cards on how much Spider-Man they can sell without Spider-Man.
THR says that Sony wants to bring Tom Holland into other spinoffs, but at some point your schedule just becomes too packed, especially if you’re a supporting character to bolster some villain. It’s possible that the best way forward to creating a connected universe among the villains may not be Spider-Man, but a character who crosses over between Spider-Man: Homecoming and the rest of the Spidey-verse—a Claire Temple or Agent Coulson, if you will.
So the question becomes how can you make people care about Spider-Man supporting characters without Spider-Man? That’s one that a lot of people are going to have to answer since Venom and the Silver Sable/Black Cat movie Silver & Black are both set to start filming this year.
