Latino Review is reporting that Sony, the caretakers of the Spider-Man movie franchise universe, are putting together an Aunt May spin-off movie to go along with their forthcoming Venoms and Sinister Sixes and Carnages and things.
And you know what? Why the hell not?
Latino Review is an outlet known for regularly putting out wild claims of this manner, but it’s also known for being right half of the time. And it doesn’t seem entirely unlikely* that Sony might be shooting for the moon in an attempt to differentiate itself from the Marvel, DC, and X-Men movie universe juggernauts.
*Quadruple negative!
And hey, we like weird superhero movies now, right? Guardians of the Galaxy starred a tree, for heaven’s sake, and it’s still raking in the b-b-buck$$$. “Who do we got that’s weird?” Sony might be asking itself. Morlun? He’s a spider-god predator thing. Too religious. Pass. Well, hey, boss, we’ve got the rights to Swarm. The Swarm, eh? So he’s made of bees? Bees and probably wasps, too, sir. It has potential. Put him on the maybe pile.
What about…and this is crazy…a quivering young executive says from the far corner…the origin story of Aunt May?
It ticks all the boxes, doesn’t it? Closely related to Spider-Man? Check. Female-led movie in the midst of our bro-heavy franchise? Check. So weird people will have to pay attention to it? Check. Probably cheap to make? CHECK.
And now we’re here. Considering the possibility of an Aunt May movie.
Latino Review says that it would probably eschew May’s troublesome Trouble origin story published in the early 2000s (it was a schlocky romance that “revealed” that Peter was actually May’s scandalous kid) and go for a more action and drama-oriented revision:
The target mood is some sort of espionage story in the vein of AMC’s Mad Men, which sounds like a way of saying “classier Agent Carter” without name-dropping Marvel’s upcoming series.
That sounds okay, but what if…and we’re tossing out free ideas here Sony…it was like HBO’s Girls, but set in the 1960s (or whenever it is that May is a 20-something) and she has a severe rivalry with Mary McCarthy!
Or you could Forrest Gump her! Show Aunt May as she appears on the periphery of a bunch of major historical events in the latter half of the 20th century! Who sparked the riot at Altamont, Ms. Parker? Who really took that shot at Ronald Reagan, Ms. Parker? Who assigned a young intern to the Oval Office, Ms. Parker?
You know what’s kind of exciting? Movies about cooking. You can explain May’s struggle to create and legitimize wheatcakes in the shadow of Julia Child, and then you can sell Sony brand wheatcakes! The money practically makes itself!
