Olivia Wilde Will Direct A Female-Centered Marvel Movie For Sony's Spider-Verse

Still hot off the heels of her tremendous directing debut, “Booksmart”—one of the most accomplished first films in recent memory—actor/director Olivia Wilde has been tapped to direct a Marvel film over at Sony Pictures, meaning one of the characters within Spider-Man’s Spiderverse, or as it’s officially known as, Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters. Update: Deadline now retroactively says, Spider-Woman is believed to be the character, but none of that is official.

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While it’s unclear which character Wilde will be directing in a movie, it will be a female character. This is probably no surprise, Sony has been trying to develop a female-based Spider-Man movie for a few years now, going through iterations of a “Sable & Black” movie, which they are still developing and trying to get off the ground and Spider-Woman. Filmmaker S.J. Clarkson has already been tapped to direct a “Madame Webb” movie, so it’s clear that female heroes in the Spiderverse are important to Sony (Spider-Gwen was also a major character in the animated “Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse” movie).

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Wilde will be penning the secretive Marvel/Sony female Spider-verse movie with her writing partner Katie Silberman (“Booksmart”) while Amy Pascal will produce along with Rachel O’Connor will exec produce.

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Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters (blech) has a lot of female characters in it, but many of the main and known ones, Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson, and Jessica Drew, generally aren’t heroes and more like love interests (minus Drew).  The Black Cat, Felicia Sara Hardy, who showed up in a small role in Marc Webb’sThe Amazing Spider-Man 2,” as played by Felicity Jones, is the most well-known Spider-Man female hero/anti-hero, but generally, most of these characters, even Madame Webb, are fairly obscure, but that’s clearly not stopping Sony (see their “Morbius” movie).

READ MORE: ‘Booksmart’: Olivia Wilde Crushes A Superdope Friendship Goals Teen Comedy For The ‘Lady Bird’ Generation [SXSW Review]

Sony is at a disadvantage in this way. Whereas Marvel has a nearly unlimited field of characters to play with especially since considering 20th Century Fox and all the X-Men and Fantastic Four universes, Sony only has Spider-Man characters to play with and not many of these supporting characters feel worthy of a movie. Still, ‘Into-The-Spiderverse‘ was fantastic, and “Venom” was a huge hit, so it clearly can be done.

READ MORE: ‘Booksmart’ Cast Explains How Director Olivia Wilde Inspired Them

Wilde has been engaged as a writer/director seemingly dozens of times ever since “Booksmart” took SXSW by storm in 2019. And she’s been taking her writing partner Katie Silberman along for the ride. On top of the pair of them working on this unknown Marvel/Sony project, Silberman is attached to write the screenplay and produce “Don’t Worry, Darling,” a thriller film that Wilde will direct and a Christmas movie that the pair are working on among others. [Deadline]