Earlier today, Sony Pictures pulled SILVER & BLACK from their schedule. The Spider-Man spin-off focusing on Silver Sable and Black Cat was set for a February 8, 2019 release, but despite the studio pulling the film, the project isn't as dead as some would believe. SILVER & SABLE director Gina Prince-Bythewood spoke with Collider shortly after the news first broke, and she says that the project is going "back to the drawing board" in an effort to make it as good as it can be.
With Silver and Black, when you’re doing a film of that magnitude, it’s gotta be right. And if it’s not right, we actually collectively decided to go back to the drawing board and start over. That’s gonna take time. So obviously, I’d love to be shooting right now, but to be shooting something that I know is not as good as it can be, I’m not the type that wants to shoot something you’re rewriting, as you’re shooting. So, we have to get the script right, and I’m okay to wait. I may be shooting something before that, but it really is just get the script right before we go on that journey.
Can't say that I fault her for wanting to take the time to get it right. We've seen far too many films rush into production without a finished script over the years and it usually ends up biting them in the ass. Lindsey Beer (CHAOS WALKING) and Geneva Robertson-Dworet (CAPTAIN MARVEL) were brought on to pen the script for SILVER & BLACK earlier this year, but it seems that they couldn't quite break it. Back to the drawing board indeed.
Gina Prince-Bythewood has previously compared the project to both THELMA & LOUISE and MIDNIGHT RUN, saying that she wants to tell the story of "two damaged women who are at war with each other but need each other to survive." As for the characters themselves, Black Cat, also known as Felicia Hardy, is an acrobatic cat burglar who has had a "long and tangled romantic history with Spider-Man." As for Silver Sable, she's a mercenary who runs a company which hunts war criminals. Skilled in hand-to-hand combat as well as various martial arts, Silver Sable is an expert markswoman, swordswoman, and gymnast. Although her methods may sometimes bring her into conflict with other superheroes, she has also been an ally of Spider-Man on several occasions.
VENOM, Sony's next Spider-Verse movie (without Spider-Man), is set to hit theaters on October 5, 2018.