Could The Dark Knight Rises Producer Robinov Work on Spider-Man Movies?

Earlier this year, Warner Bros.'s new CEO Ken Tsujihara forced film chief Jeff Robinov--a man who had been considered for the CEO position before Tsujihara got it--out of the company, in spite of years of success at building both franchises and relationships with directors like Zack Snyder and Christopher Nolan who proved key to Warner's recent success. Shortly thereafter, it was widely reported that Robinov and new partner Graham King could end up with their own film shingle at Sony Pictures, providing funding and guidance for big budget films at the studio in a way not entirely unlike how Thomas Tull and Legendary worked with Robinov and Warner for years (Legendary also split up with Warners in 2013, and headed to Universal). Robinov, an executive with an artsy sensibility who was willing to take chances on filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Gravity's Alfonso Cuarón, hasn't settled into a new role yet, but the Sony rumors persist, according to Deadline's year-end wrap-up, and we wondered: what are the odds that somebody with a long history of luring hot filmmakers into Warner Bros. to work on unexpected projects, often to massive financial success, would be asked to play a similar role in the planned expansion of the Spider-Man brand at Sony?

Seems pretty likely, doesn't it? Besides Christopher Nolan, who would likely be near-impossible to lure back into the superhero game at present, Deadline and other trade publications have speculated that Robinov might have sufficient pull to poach filmmakers like Ben Affleck, Zack Snyder, The Great Gatsby's Baz Luhrmann, The Hangover's Todd Phillips and Cuarón. While Luhrmann and Phillips don't seem like great fits for a superhero film based on their previous work--and Affleck and Snyder are pretty committed to the DC Cinematic Universe at Warners for probably the long term at this point--Cuarón is an intriguing choice, and one that could turn out to be inspired. First of all, Cuarón is cruising for a handful of end-of-the-year awards including, many believe, a Best Picture Oscar for Gravity. If that were to happen, it would be the second year in a row that a filmmaker's passion project, enabled by Robinov, delivered the night's biggest prize for Warner Bros. (last year, Affleck's Argo won). And since nobody else in Hollywood really wanted Gravity (described in the Deadline article as "an expensive auteur effort that has zero sequel potential"), Cuarón likely knows that whatever success he has with the film is at least in part thanks to the confidence that Robinov placed in him. While Cuarón is best known for films like Y Tu Mamá También and Children of Men, he's no stranger to massive, tentpole franchise movies. While at Warners with Robinov, he directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He's been rumored to be in the mix for movies like The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Star Wars Episode VII, so it's not as though he wasn't in demand even before the massive success of Gravity. Certainly he's a filmmaker to watch--and one who could fit Spider-Man neatly into his angst-ridden-teen and big-special-effects-including-lots-of-swinging-and-flying wheelhouse.