Word first arrived in September that Sony was looking to further develop opportunities for the large amount of Marvel characters to which it owns the rights. There is now a distribution deal in place, with Amazon picking up global rights to any potential shows.
First out of the gate will be Silk: Spider Society, which will follow the adventures of Cindy Moon, a character created by Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos.
A Korean-American classmate of Peter Parker’s, she was first introduced in the comic books in The Amazing Spider-Man #1 in 2014. Like Parker, she is bitten by a radioactive spider, which gives her the ability to move at incredible speed, shoot webs out of her fingertips, and possess an advanced Spider-Sense (known as Silk Sense). Tiffany Espensen played the character in Spider-Man: Homecoming, though not the superhero version.
Angela Kang, who is now wrapping up her tenure as show-runner for The Walking Dead, is aboard to oversee the show, while Phil Lord and Chris Miller are producing as part of their overall deal with the studio, alongside fellow Spider-steward Amy Pascal.
"Angela is a pro’s pro whose perspective and creativity we greatly respect and admire. She’s also a hell of a lot of fun. She loves these characters and we feel really lucky for the chance to work with her to bring Cindy Moon’s story to the world," Lord and Miller said in a statement.
"I’m beyond thrilled to be joining the Amazon Studios family for this next chapter of my career," says Kang. "I look forward to working with the executive team on diverse, character-forward, watercooler shows for a global audience and am so excited to dive in to my first challenge — bringing Korean-American superhero Silk to life on screen."
In an odd quirk of the deal, despite Amazon producing them, US viewers will see the shows on MGM+, which is the new name for Epix. Feels like an odd venue given that people often had trouble finding Epix or remembering it existed, but that's business for you sometimes…
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