Sony Has Reportedly Narrowed Down The List of SPIDER-MAN Directors To These Names
As Sony and Marvel try to make the tough decision about who will portray Spider-Man on the big screen for the next few years, the upcoming solo film also needs a director. We had an update on this about three weeks ago, but now some new information has come to light and the studio is closer than ever to making its final decision.
Deadline reports that Ted Melfi (St. Vincent) and Jonathan Levine (Warm Bodies) are the favorites, while the duo of John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein (Vacation) are still in contention and Cop Car director Jon Watts has also entered the fray as a late addition.
Worth noting: the report says that whoever is hired will "steer a multi-picture arc that takes the protagonist through high school." It's unclear whether that's just Deadline's attempt at describing the franchise in vague terms (we've known this will follow a younger Spidey for a while now), or if they actually mean that this director is being brought on for multiple sequels. From a studio perspective, that could be tricky: on paper, it'd be great to bring someone in for multiple movies up front, but if the first one doesn't do the numbers they're hoping for, someone will need to take the blame for it, and for better or worse that will likely be the director.
With a release date already scheduled for July 28th, 2017, the studio needs to make a decision on this fairly soon, so we'll update you when the final director is chosen.