Roberto Orci Discusses Developing SINISTER SIX and VENOM Movies
Art by Ninja2ASSN
Sony Pictures announced about a month a go that they would be developing a series of Spider-Man spin-off films that would focus on some of the various villains that Spider-Man has taken on in his career as a superhero. I'm excited to see how the creative team will build on this universe when bringing the Sinister Six and Venom to the big screen. In an interview with IGN, Roberto Orci, who is currently writing The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and Venom, talks about the challenges of developing other villains like Electro, Rhino, Green Goblin, Vulture, and Doc Ock as feature films.
That’s the discussion we’re having right now; how exactly do you do that, and how do you do it without betraying the audience and making them all mean? Drew Goddard is going to be writing that one, so it’s kind of his problem. [Laughs] I’m kidding. We’re all working on each other’s stuff. So we want to be true to it, but there are some antiheroes in this day and age. There’s been examples of that even on TV — Vic Mackey on The Shield, one of the great antiheroes of all time. There are ways to milk that story. Audiences have seen everything. They’ve seen all the good guys who never do anything wrong. Is there a story in seeing the other side? That’s the challenge, and that’s the fun. I’m not sure how we’re going to do that yet.
When asked if the new universe they are creating is overly ambitious, he said:
No it doesn’t, actually. It feels very familiar, because Alex and I started in television. In television, you get a great team of writers together, a writing staff, and you’re working on five episodes at once. You’re prepping one, you’re shooting one, you’re writing one, you’re posting one, and you’re trying to make sure they’re consistent over 13 or 22 episodes. That’s how we learned how to do things. So it’s funny in the movie business, and you have different things being done by different teams and they’re not all communicating with each other. So when we talked about our interest in all this stuff, we said, “Well, the way would want to do it is kind of go to a TV model,” and then the distinction between the quality of TV and film has gone away. They’re both equally viable, awesome storytelling formats. So the idea of, let’s get a core group of writers and producers and directors — and even though I might not be the one writing Venom, I’ll be in the meetings talking about how to make it interesting. We could be putting in easter eggs and planning ahead in the previous movies, and then that guy over there is going to write that movie, and Ed Solomon’s gonna write another one with us. So having a committee, a board, of people who are creative, who are filmmaker, who just keep it all together, that’s kind of going back to the way we started.
He then goes on to talk about why they decided to focus on Spider-Man villains:
Oh, I see. You mean focusing on the villains. One of our old sayings always is “Whatever you’re afraid of, go there. Follow the fear. Don’t turn away from the fear.” So what you’re saying is exactly the reason why we’re doing it. Like, let’s try and challenge ourselves. Do we think of ourselves as ballsy? No. We’re the luckiest guys in the world. There’s no courage involved in this. [Laughs] But thank you for saying so. But you’re raising the correct point, which is head towards the difficult stuff.
Everything is still in the early stages for these movies, but they are coming. I imagine we won't see any of these new films until after The Amazing Spider-Man 3, which is supposed to be released in 2016. Even though there are going to be challenges developing these projects, I'm sure in the end they'll figure it all out and give us a series of movies that we'll all be able to enjoy.