The Amazing Spider-Man Spinoffs We Want to See

Sony recently announced that they want to make a Spider-Man Universe film every year--and a big part of the way they're going to do that will have to be with spinoffs that take aim at Spidey's villains and those Amazing Friends close enough to him to be considered part of his rights package. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 is slated for 2016 with The Amazing Spider-Man 4 currently at 2018. It seems likely that, barring some story development that replaces Peter Parker with somebody else, the 2018 movie will actually be one of the spinoffs (Sinister Six and Venom have already been announced), which would give them three full years to replace Webb and Garfield (who has expressed no interest in going past his three-picture deal). At that point, you'll probably see even-numbered years featuring spinoff characters while odd-numbered years are Spidey proper. Well, tonight as the Academy Awards celebrate heroes of all stripes, it seeemed as good a time as any to speculate wildly as to just which Spider-Man characters might find themselves the focus of a new movie.

Morbius Morbius, the Living Vampire is probably the most obvious choice. Sometimes a hero, sometimes a villain, and often discussed as a possibility to be the mysterious man at Oscorp in the hat and coat, he's a compelling character, easy to understand, interesting...and visually cool.

Kraven This character will almost certainly show up as a Spider-Man villain before he ever got his own movie, but here's the thing: how much fun could it be, tracing his reality show-style antics a la the Ultimate Comics version? The fundamental problem, of course, is that any filmmaker to get their hands on this character would want to do Kraven's Last Hunt.

Scarlet Spider Another anti-hero, and one with a pretty cool backstory, is the second Scarlet Spider, who recently headlined his own short-lived series. Unfortunately, it may have felt a little redundant having Venom, Scarlet Spider and the Superior Spider-Man all floating around--essentially three different morally gray guys dressed like Spider-Man, none of whom were actually Spider-Man, who has been dead for a while (don't worry; he's getting better in time for the movie). Kaine, one of the villains behind the Clone Saga (more on that below), is under the hood here, and while he is living as a fugitive, he still did some pretty good stuff, including defeating Clone Saga architect Kaine with the Superior Spider-man by his side.

Ben Reilly If you haven't read since the '90s, you're going, "Wait, what? Isn't Ben Reilly the Scarlet Spider? And yeah, he was at one point but as noted above, that's not who recently  had the costume, and probably not the guy who would be the most likely to come to mind if they announced a Scarlet Spider movie. Nevertheless, there's something oddly compelling about the Clone Saga, and if the movies could do what the Ultimate Universe did--create something cool out of it rather than allowing it to sink into the morass as they did in the 616 Universe--it could totally be worth visiting...and give you a fill-in Spider-Man who could star in The Amazing Spider-Man 4 while the filmmakers look for a permanent new webhead. The challenge? Explaining how the whole "clone" thing works if you're not just recasting Garfield.

This one is, let's face it, a total fantasy. It will not only never get made, but it probably shouldn't get made since there's virtually no chance it could ever make its budget back. Nevertheless, there's something cool about the concept, and his look would transfer really well to the screen (see the video game adaptations in which he's appeared). The problem is that science fiction is a tricky wicket any way you slice it, and making dramatic changes to what most people perceive as Spider-Man would be a tough sell. The same kind of people who got all worked up when they found out that Green Lantern was going to be white (because they only knew John Stewart from Justice League Unlimited will almost certainly not cotton to their Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man receiving an unexplained race-change...even if it isn't the same guy.

Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man This one would carry with it some of the same baggage as Spider-Man 2099 (imagine the current Johnny Storm outrage times about a hundred), with a key difference: there's no need for a sci-fi setting (or any major changes to the Amazing universe, which is heavily influenced by the Ultimate Universe anyway). There's also a decidedly logical way to do it: kill Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker. That's something, by the way, that Sony insiders have said isn't outside of the realm of possibilities. Could we actually see this particular story play out onscreen? It would be ballsy, that's for sure...!