Our long national nightmare is finally over: Sony announced release dates for two more Spider-Man movies. (Yes, that was sarcasm. Did anybody really think they’d give these rights up?) Despite both Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman recently casting the future of Spidey movies at Sony into doubt, Sony and Columbia Pictures are definitely moving forward with that thing they need to keep the rights to. And also an adaptation of the video game Uncharted, because a Nathan Drake movie is like rebooting the Indiana Jones franchise without the stink of crystal skulls or Shia LaBeouf.
Columbia and Sony have kicked off Comic-Con a little early by announcing that Sinister Six is hitting theaters on November 11, 2016. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 will arrive sometime in 2018, and Uncharted has a release date of June 10, 2016. Here’s part of the press release, courtesy of Coming Soon:
Columbia Pictures today announced its updated release strategy for the nearly $4 billion Spider-Man franchise. The next film in the series will be Sinister Six, writer-director Drew Goddard’s highly anticipated villain team-up, which is the first of several planned character and story expansions. The film, which will be produced by Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach, will hit theaters on November 11, 2016.
Columbia Pictures will then release the next installment, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, in 2018.
The studio also announced that it has slated Uncharted for June 10, 2016, a prime summer release date for the highly anticipated film. The movie is an action-adventure based upon the critically- acclaimed and top-selling PlayStation® video game series, which follows the adventures of treasure hunter Nathan Drake. Seth Gordon will direct the film. The latest draft of the screenplay is being written by David Guggenheim, and the film will be an Arad/Atlas Entertainment Production, produced by Charles Roven, Avi Arad, Alex Gartner and Ari Arad. The video game series was developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment America, LLC (SCEA). Uncharted takes the date on the release schedule previously held by The Amazing Spider-Man 3.
So The Amazing Spider-Man 3 is delayed (which we already knew), but it was supposed to tie into Sinister Six and Venom, at least one of which is now coming out first. No wonder Kurtzman and Orci seemed to be throwing up their hands in confusion during recent interviews.
But this is all just a distraction from the real issue: When will we finally get our Italian Spider-Man feature film?