Fresh off directing the pilot for Marvel's Cloak and Dagger TV series, Gina Prince-Bythewood is now set to helm another comic book adaptation: Sony's Black Cat and Silver Sable movie. The tentative plan is for the film - now formally titled Silver and Black and based around the eponymous Spider-Man comic book antiheroes - to begin production this fall, much like its fellow Spider-Man-inspired tentpole, Venom (now confirmed to star Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock).
Prince-Bythewood, whose filmmaking resumes also includes such critically-acclaimed dramas as Love & Basketball (her feature-length directing debut) and Beyond the Lights, will be drawing from a Black Cat/Silver Sable script draft by Christopher Yost (co-writer of Thor: The Dark World and this fall's Thor: Ragnarok). An earlier draft of the film's screenplay was written by Lisa Joy, who is also known as the co-creator/co-showrunner of HBO's hit TV series Westworld.
According to THR, Prince-Bythewood is now set to direct Silver and Black, with Matt Tolmach and Amy Pascal producing. The tentative plan is still for Black Cat/Silver Sable to begin production this fall, keeping the project on-course to make a release date in either early 2019 or late 2018. It thus joins a growing list of comic book/superhero films that are on-course to arrive next year, including Venom (set to arrive in October of next year) and a trio of 20th Century Fox's X-Men movies, among other titles.
As a director known (and well-respected) for being a character-driven storyteller, Prince-Bythewood signing up to call the shots on Silver and Black is certainly encouraging news. Furthermore, her involvement behind the camera means that Silver and Black will become the rare modern comic book movie based around female protagonists that is directed by a woman (a woman of color, no less), following on the heels of Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman DCEU film this year.
This news arrives on the heels of Sony confirming Hardy for Venom, with Ruben Fleisher (Zombieland, Gangster Squad) lined up as director. Similar to Eddie Brock (aka. Venom), the mercenary Silver Sable (aka. Silver Sablinova) and professional burglar Black Cat (aka. Felicia Hardy) are the sometimes-enemies, sometimes-allies of Spider-Man during his comic book adventures. However, for the time being, these films based around Spider-Man antiheroes are being kept separate from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (which now counts Tom Holland's web-slinging Peter Parker amongst its ranks).
It remains to be seen how successful (or not) Sony's non-MCU based Spider-Man universe proves to be, especially in the wake of the MCU installment Spider-Man: Homecoming (starring Holland) hitting theaters this summer. However, with impressive talents such as Hardy and Prince-Bythewood now involved in a creative capacity, there's more than fair reason to start taking Sony's Spider-verse plans seriously.
NEXT: What Tom Hardy Could Look Like as Venom
Source: THR
