Surprising Director Shortlist For Spider-Man Reboot

As we eagerly anticipate the announcement of the latest actor to take on Spider-Man - with the selection process rumoured (but not confirmed) to be down to Asa Butterfield and Tom Holland - there would appear to be another race hotting up around the iconic wall-crawler: to find the new director.

It had been hotly rumoured, and in some corners accepted as fact, that this job had already been landed by ‘The Cabin in the Woods’ director Drew Goddard, who had been attached to Sony’s Spidey spin-off ‘Sinister Six,’ before this was cancelled in the wake of the exciting Marvel deal.

However, the ever-reliable Deadline have announced five directors (technically six, one being a duo) said to be in line to helm the new ‘Spider-Man’ - and much to our surprise, Goddard is not among them. Indeed, there isn’t a single name there we might have necessarily expected to see on the list.

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It seems the contenders to direct the new ‘Spider-Man’ are Jared Hess (’Napoleon Dynamite’), Jonathan Levine (’50/50,’ ‘Warm Bodies’), Jason Moore (’Pitch Perfect’), Ted Melfi (’St. Vincent’), and John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein (the upcoming ‘Vacation’ reboot).

Furthermore, Deadline give some indications of the tone Marvel and Sony are going for on the reboot. While it has been established that the new film will definitely not retell Spidey’s origin yet again, co-producers Kevin Feige and Amy Pascal are reportedly planning “an arc that will tell the Spidey story over three to four movies, each covering a year of high school for Peter Parker.”

Sounds a bit Harry Potter - however, the tone Feige and Pascal are said to be aiming for is “John Hughes humour and emotion, plus all the superhero stuff.”

It’s certainly easy enough to imagine any of the listed directors managing something John Hughes-ish; however, it’s somewhat harder to envisage any of them tackling the kind of spectacular action the film (or films plural) will also require. Much the same was true of Marc Webb when he landed ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ - so we may be forgiven for lacking confidence in these choices.

The key difference, of course, is that Marc Webb didn’t have Kevin Feige in his corner, as whoever lands ‘Spider-Man’ will - and it seems widely accepted that, for better or worse, Marvel’s president and super-producer is as much the author of any of these movies as their directors.

We can also hardly fail to note that, much like all the aforementioned ‘Spider-Man’ contenders, Joe and Anthony Russo had little-to-no action experience before landing ‘Captain America: the Winter Soldier’ - and now, with ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and both volumes of ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ on their to-do list, that directorial duo have been largely entrusted with what promises to be the highest profile phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Of the contenders listed, this writer for one would probably opt for Jonathan Levine, simply because his CV to date - from slasher movie ‘All the Boys Love Mandy Lane,’ to comedy-dramas ‘The Wackness’ and ‘50/50,’ to zombie romance ‘Warm Bodies’ - would seem to indicate the greatest versatility.

All that said, Deadline admit the shortlist is not all inclusive, and there are almost certainly more contenders we don’t yet know about. I for one hope Drew Goddard is still in the mix.

Marvel and Sony’s as-yet untitled ‘Spider-Man’ solo movie (variously rumoured to be ‘The Spectacular Spider-Man’ or ‘Spider-Man: the New Avenger’) is due 28 July 2017.

Before that, the new Spidey will spin his first web in ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ due 29 April 2016.

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Picture Credit: Sony, WENN