Amazon reportedly scraps writers room for Spider-Man TV spin-off Silk
Showrun by The Walking Dead's Angela Kang, the Silk show has reportedly been set for a "developmental overhaul"
Aux News Silk
Messy things are afoot in the world of Spider-People this weekend, as The Ankler reports that Amazon has shut down the recently reconvened writers room for Spidey TV spin-off Silk: Spider Society. Although The Walking Dead alum Angela Kang will stay on as showrunner, the rest of its writers have reportedly been let go as the series, centered on popular comics character Cindy “Silk” Moon, gets a “developmental overhaul.”
The live-action Silk series was initially announced (under the auspices of executive producers Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Amy Pascal) back in November of 2022, and aimed at MGM+ (formerly Epix), where episodes would premiere before making their way to Amazon Prime Video. The series focuses on Cindy Moon, a new(-ish) hero created by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos in 2014: Bitten, just moments later, by the same spider that gave Peter Parker his powers, Cindy trains to crime fight on her own before getting locked up for several years, as part of a whole plotline we’re not going to get into here, because if we have to explain shit like “Morlun” and “Spider-Totems” in this Newswire, we’re all going to be here all day.
The upshot is that Cindy—who also got teased in the recent Spider-Man 2 video game—has many of the same powers that Peter does, albeit with a higher focus on speed over strength. She’s had a pretty successful publication history, having eventually been teamed up with well-liked Marvel team the Agents Of Atlas, as well as starring in a number of ongoing series of her own.
News of the retool comes, unavoidably, amidst the lukewarm critical reception to the latest Spider-adjacent movie, Dakota Johnson’s Madame Web. (Which features, it’s worth noting, Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims—a major character in Silk’s origin story.) It’s hard not to see the news about Silk—which at least one source suggested was being re-developed in order to make it “more male-skewing”—as linked to Web’s expected underperformance at the box office. Writing on the series began back before last year’s strikes, with reports that the room “had been a number of episodes deep into the season” when the Writers Guild strike shut things down; the show’s room was reconvened back in January.
27 Comments
I shudder to think what a TV executive’s idea of a more male-skewing female-led superhero project is, but that combo of words is like a linguistic skull-and-crossbones.
Spiders on trampolines?
Human jumping spiders? 10/10 would watch.
Eh, it’s not that much worse than how she was introduced in the comics.
The phrase is certainly groan-inducing. The article, however, ties the change to Amazon’s success with things like Reacher and Jack Ryan. That suggests that they aren’t necessarily thinking, like, “Men want to see tits.”I also wonder if one of the things studios are drawing from The Marvels, Madam Web, and Birds of Prey is that women-led superhero movies that also have a heavily female cast do not succeed. Wonder Woman and the original Captain Marvel had a female lead but a predominantly male cast. I could see the argument that superhero movies with a predominantly male cast are seen by the audience as Superhero Movies, whereas superhero movies with a predominantly female cast are seen as Women’s Movies. (Obviously, you could also just argue that Madame Web was lousy, whereas Wonder Woman was not.)
There’s also the fact that incel-basement dwelling man babies are a large vocal chunk of the superhero fandom and they get really upset by women entering what they perceive as “their space”. Which is just total bullshit. This is my least favourite part of liking these films. A section of the fans just make it really not fun to get excited about these films. And women aren’t invited. The end.
This will be a trainwreck…. purely cause the execs in charge are focused on Madam Webb instead of SV’s Gwen Stacey (aka obsessed with not being ‘bad’ that they don’t try to write anything good)
Terrible mindset to start off with.
The producers saw Madame Web and realized they needed to up their game and start over from scratch. Or they’re just jerks in suits who get off on destructive displays of power. Either way, more spiders is the answer!
They’re replacing the show with the much cheaper Nylon.
Not that worried about Sony’s television department making Marvel shows because these shows are produced by Lord and Miller and Sony’s television department is quite competent. From Breaking Bad to The Crown to The Boys. But Sony’s live-action film division is where the Marvel problem lies. Sony’s film studio just needs better quality controls. Almost all of Sony’s films have the script, production, and post-production issues that plagued Marvel movies like Ghost Rider, Morbius, and Madame Web, albeit on a smaller scales. Even financially successful films like Uncharted suffer from Sony studio blandness and meddling. Remember the Papa John’s scene in Uncharted. What even was that? If I’m CEO Tom Rothman, I outright end Sony’s Marvel Universe after Venom 3, and I hire Lord and Miller’s production company to run Sony’s Marvel content in its entirety outside the MCU.
What is kinda amazing is watching Sony somehow manage to flub a live action spider-man universe over and over again and yet manage to produce to great animated Spider-man movies. Even more amazing considering it’s the only Marvel film project that has managed to land the concept of multiverses and make it fun and interesting. I’m not sure how this thing fit into all this but it seemed like it was going down the wrong path of trying to make a side spider-man character their own thing. Silk is a better choice then whatever that Bad Bunny Mexican Wrestler movie was going to be but despite several spider-ladies out there to adapt I think it’s clear the only one that really has any fanbase is Spider-Gwen
We also have pretty good evidence that Spider-Gwen can stand on her own. The first hour of Across the Spider-Verse is really much more a Gwen Stacy movie than a Miles Morales movie, and my sense is audiences didn’t have a problem with that or feel they’d been duped.
I think that bad bunny thing is still happening. And it’ll be absolutely the same vibe as Madame Web (and Kraven I guess too). Sony’s whole game here is clearly to churn out bland MCU lookalikes to trick parents into thinking they’re taking their kids to an Avengers-associated film. I mean that’s gotta be it right? Similar to how clickbait will start calling a Sony film an MCU film to deliberately generate outrage.
The Sony suits mostly stay out of Lord & Miller’s way on the Spider-Verse films because they’re busy making the lame Venomverse films instead.
The constant failed attempts to make Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man are fascinating to watch, even if the movies themselves are not. (I guess most of them have made money somehow, although not from anyone I know, and none of them have exactly been critical darlings.)The only superhero movie without the superhero that comes to mind that I would call an unqualified success is Joker. Yes, a lot of people hated it comic-book and Scorsese fans hated it, but it is objectively true that it was among the top-grossing films of the year, the first R-rated film to top $1 billion, and a record-setter for Academy Award nominations for a movie based on a comic-book character.Perhaps it is because the producers shelled out the money for A-list actors and a competent writer and director, or maybe its because they did not constrain themselves in tone, content, or style to fit into a pre-existing “cinematic universe,” but it doesn’t seem like anyone has succeeded or even seriously tried to match that success.Arguably too, the best Spider-Man movies of recent years if not ever are the animated “Spider-Verse” films, which also benefit from just being the best they can be fitting into a larger continuity.
we’ll see how it goes. I want to see Silk succeed.
Yes but how does Turner D. Century fit in to all of this?
Is Silk popular enough to warrant a show? She always struck me as kind of a lower-tier Spider-Woman.
“more male skewing” ffs
“Bitten, just moments later, by the same spider that gave Peter Parker his powers, Cindy trains to crime fight on her own before getting locked up for several years”It’s actually “a split second” later, which is a ridiculous ham-fisting of Silk into Spider-Man’s origin, typical of the terrible writing Dan Slott is known for.And she doesn’t train at all after the bite. Ezekiel immediately locks her up after she gets her powers (to save her from Morlun, a cosmic being that feeds off of Spider-people) where she is imprisoned for 13 years. And then when Spidey releases her (for stupid reasons i.e. Dan Slott writing) she is immediately better at using her powers than Spider-Man is. Even though he has been using his powers consistently for 13 years, and she has not, having been locked up for all of that time.And of course, whenever Silk and Spider-Man get physically close to each other, their pheromones cause them to want to bone each other. Dan Slott, ladies and gentlemen!Thank goodness other writers took over the character and turned her into a worthwhile character.
I mean, tbf, when you’re locked in a bunker with nothing else to do, there’s probably plenty of time to get past the awkward phase of learning your powers.
That is some hackneyed bullshit right there, wow.
which at least one source suggested was being re-developed in order to make it “more male-skewing”
Ah, so I see we’re gonna bring back the incredibly awkward part of her powers (that literally no one I’ve ever seen anywhere likes) where her and Peter Parker wildly want to fuck whenever they’re close because of spider-pheromone bullshit.
Good idea Sony, we wouldn’t want to actually risk a spider-person getting into the Sony Spider-Man Minus Spider-Man Cinematic Universe.(seriously I am not a screenwriter or have any background in film production whatsoever but I’m pretty sure I could do way better than whoever’s running the trainwreck that is Sony’s superhero* division)*non-animated
“Bitten, just moments later, by the same spider that gave Peter Parker his powers”Hot dang they really got creative for her backstory, didn’t they?
Why didn’t they just introduce Silk earlier to be the Spider-hero of this particular timeline, instead of the convoluted mess they’ve made skirting around that issue?Also, having read a Morlun story but never having read a Morbius story, I thought they were the same character for a LONG time.