‘Silk: Spider Society’: Amazon Scraps Plans For Live-Action Spidey Series Entirely

After five years in development, “Silk: Spider Society” is no more.  Variety reports that Amazon has scrapped plans for the live-action series entirely after the show already received a massive writers’ room overhaul in February. It’s a fate Spidey-fans shouldn’t be surprised by. When Amazon gave “Noir” with Nic Cage the green light last week, they provided no updates on “Silk: Spider Society,” leading many to assume the worst.

READ MORE: Nicolas Cage May Star In ‘Spider-Man Noir’ While The ‘Silk’ Project Gets Scrapped & Overhauled

“Silk: Spider Society” was supposed to be the first live-action Spidey-Verse series for MGM+ and Prime Video, with “Noir” the second. The show was first greenlit in November 2022 after three years in development as part of a deal between Sony Pictures Television and Amazon to produce shows based on the roughly 900 Marvel characters Sony controls. “Silk: Spider Society” would have debuted on MGM+ exclusively before a global launch of Prime Video, with the hope being it’d be the first of several Spider-Man Universe shows.  

And the show’s latest iteration had a lot of creative power behind it.  Angela Kang, who served as showrunner on the last three seasons of AMC‘s “The Walking Dead,” signed on as showrunner for “Silk: Spider Society” in November 2022 as part of her multi-year overall with Amazon MGM Studios.  Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Amy Pascal were also on board as executive producers for the series. But Amazon apparently wasn’t happy with how the show was progressing, prompting them to shutdown its writers’ room in February. Kang remained attached to the project, but Amazon wanted to refocus the show for a male audience. That’s a silly choice, considering the show’s title character is Cindy Moon, a Korean-American woman, but not surprising since Prime Video’s most popular shows include the likes of “Reacher,” “The Boys,” “Jack Ryan,” and “Fallout.”

Although “Silk: Spider Society” may be dead at Amazon, Sony will still attempt to shop the series around to other buyers. The odds of that happening aren’t great, however, as the Spidey-Verse’s cultural cache has taken a hit recently with the misfire of “Madame Web” and “Kraven The Hunter” being pushed way back to a December 13 theatrical release. But maybe “Venom: The Last Dance” will boost the brand when it hits theaters on October 25.

Here’s an official logline for “Silk: Spider Society”: a Korean-American woman bitten by the same spider that bit Peter Parker, as she escapes imprisonment and searches for her missing family on her way to becoming the superhero known as Silk.

Given the show’s fraught development history, the demise of “Silk: Spider Society” isn’t so surprising. Sony Pictures Television first commissioned Lauren Moon to write a TV adaptation of the Silk character in 2019. Then a year later, Sony started talks with Amazon about a suite of Marvel series, with “Silk: Spider Society” leading the way. In 2021, Amazon added “Watchmen” alum Tom Spezialy as showrunner before Kang replaced him in 2022.  Flashforward to now, and Amazon wasn’t happy with the show’s progress, forcing them to nix the project altogether.

All in all, it’s another Spider-Verse casualty for Sony, one of many in recent years.  Holding onto the rights of 900 Marvel characters doesn’t sound a like winning strategy anymore, does it?