Booksmart director Olivia Wilde will direct a new film set in the Marvel universe, Deadline reported Wednesday. Developed for Sony Pictures, the new movie will focus on one of Marvel’s female superheroes. Sony has not confirmed the subject of the film, but Deadline believes it will feature Spider-Woman. Wilde retweeted the Deadline article with a spider emoji, the report seems to confirm.
While many female characters in the Marvel universe have played a version of Peter Parker’s Spider-Man – like Spider-Gwen in an alternate universe where the radioactive spider bites Gwen Stacy instead of Parker – Spider-Woman normally refers to Jessica Drew , a completely separate hero.
Spider-Woman was originally created out of a copyright concern – Stan Lee was afraid that another comic book publisher would try to take advantage of Spider-Man’s popularity with an equally named hero – but her series was an unexpected success. Its origin story has been through many retcons and transcripts, including Hydra experimentation and alien DNA, but there is one thing it has never recorded: a radioactive spider.
Jessica Drew is more of a secret agent and private investigator than dorky Peter Parker, but she does have some similar, spidery powers, such as increased reflexes, superpower, and wall-crawling – the usual set. She also has electricity penalties like Miles Morales, and the added benefit of ‘pheromone forces’ (basically she can make people suggestive by smelling really nice).
And while this is not exactly a superpower, she has been balanced in recent comics to be a kick-butt superhero with only parenthood of a wall-crawling baby boy. She is also a long time close friend of Carol Danvers.
Deadline reports that Katie Silberman will be writing Wilde’s new film, starring Amy Pascal. Spider-Woman would be yet another Sony-developed Marvel movie in the Spider-Verse, with Morbius, Venom 2, de In the spin-verse follow up, Page, Black cat, and more plans to come in the coming years.
2019’s Booksmart was Wilde’s first film in the director’s chair. She currently has several projects in the works, all probably ahead of Spider-Woman.
Given the current Sony / Marvel situation, it is unclear if Spider-Woman would ever appear in the MCU.
