Sony’s plans for its expanded “Spider-Man” universe includes an animated comedy from the “Lego Movie” and “21 Jump Street” team of Chris Miller and Phil Lord, as revealed in documents from the newest hacking leak.
The studio also discussed allowing their “Spider-Man” universe to cross over into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, according to the same e-mails from the inbox of Sony chief Amy Pascal.
Marvel wanted Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, to be part of their upcoming threequel “Captain America: Civil War,” according to the documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
The discussion took place between Pascal, Sony President of Production Doug Belgrad and Disney chair Bob Iger and exec Kaz Hirai. An Oct. 30 e-mail had Belgrad relating to Pascal a scenario in which Marvel would produce a trilogy of new Spider-Man movies, while Sony retained “creative control, marketing and distribution.”
The purported documents also show that talks eventually broke down between Marvel and Sony, and Sony is pushing ahead on its own to grow the Spider-Man universe. A “Spidey Summit” is being scheduled for January, and along with the new Lord/Miller animated comedy, plans include previously disclosed plans for spinoff films based around Spider-Man villains Venom and Sinister Six.
The hack exposed personal information — including salaries and home addresses — of current employees and those who stopped working at Sony as far back as 2000 when the information was leaked to various news outlets and over BitTorrent.
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While North Korea at first would not confirm or deny that it was behind the hacking as retaliation for Sony’s Seth Rogen–James Franco comedy “The Interview,” which revolves around an assassination attempt on the country’s leader Kim Jung-un, it then reportedly denied involvement, calling the accusations “another fabrication targeting the country.”
However, a new message posted online Monday demanded that the film be pulled from its scheduled release, which seems to contradict the idea that there is no North Korea link.
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Additionally, earlier reports indicated findings from Sony, the FBI and private security firms turned up evidence that the malware was allegedly created on a machine with Korean language settings, was created during Korea-based hours and shares similarities to previous attacks attributed to North Korea.
The FBI will visit Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Culver City headquarters on Wednesday for employee cybersecurity awareness briefings, and CEO Michael Lynton has also scheduled an “all hands” meeting on Friday to update employees on the latest.