September 3, 2017

‘Nightwatch’: Spike Lee Could Be in the Running to Direct a Standalone Superhero Movie in the ‘Spider-Man’ Universe — Report

As the many cinematic universes of comic-book franchises continue to expand, unexpected actors and filmmakers continue to enter the fray. Edgar Wright directing “Ant-Man” proved too good to be true, but previews for Taika Waititi’s take on “Thor: Ragnarok” and Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” inspire more confidence than the average superhero jaunt.

According to Jeff Sneider’s “Meet the Movie Press” podcast, we could be getting an even more appealing director/subject pairing: Spike Lee directing a movie about Nightwatch.

Known among us non-heroes as Dr. Kevin Trench, Nightwatch has one of the more out-there origin stories: He sees a masked man die in a fight and, upon unmasking him, learns that it’s an older version of himself. Sneider says he’s “very confident” in the rumor that “Now You See Me” scribe Edward Ricourt is penning the screenplay to the standalone film, which takes place in Sony’s “Spider-Man” universe (as does the upcoming Venom movie); Lee directing the movie is still just a rumor at this point, however.

Tom Hardy will star as Venom in the upcoming spinoff, which will be somewhat unconventional in its focus on a villain rather than a hero. That film has no release date as of yet, while the Nightwatch movie is still in the earliest stages of development.

Source: IndieWire film