Rumor: Drew Goddard to write and direct The Spectacular Spider-man

In another sign that Marvel and Sony are blending their universes both in front and behind the camera, sources have Drew Goddard named as both the writer and director of the upcoming reboot of the Spider-man films.  The source comes from Latino Review, so that means it has about a fifty/fifty chance of being true, but it sounds on the money considering the recent developments with Marvel properties.

You may recall that Goddard was slated to write and produce Marvel’s DAREDEVIL series at Netflix.  While he helped write, he was replaced by Steven DeKnight when Goddard was named as the director on Sony’s SINISTER SIX spin-off.  Now, with THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN franchise dead, Goddard can bridge the world of Sony and Marvel Studios with what is being tentatively called THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN.

The rumors also suggest that the condition for Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios to get involved was only if Avi Arad were to be removed from serving as producer on the project.  Aside from that, it looks like Sony is scrapping all of their proposed spin-offs and the new film will focus on Spider-man fighting the Sinister Six.  Here are some other details from the source.

No new origin story, Spidey exists from the beginning, taken as a given

New actor, probably an unknown, he will be specifically based in High School and they want him to be able to grow up into the role.  The thought being if this works, Spidey can do multiple trilogies for years ala Harry Potter.

A major part of the first film will involve Spider- Man fighting Iron Man and then trying to pass the “audition” to join the Avengers

The first film will involved the Sinister Six coming together with the thought to later maybe spin them off.

All of this sounds pretty legit, but we will have to wait and see.  Other sources claim the new Spider-man will no longer be Caucasian, but there is no word of that here.  In either case, I like that they would skip the origin completely but there is still that annoying trend of making it a trilogy before even the first film is written.  I guess there is no avoiding that in Hollywood these days.

Spider-man will make an appearance in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR on May 6, 2016.  THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN is slated to hit theaters on July 28th, 2017.