‘Sinister Six’ Update: Producers Talk Lineup and Vision
Spider-Man spin-off Sinister Six producers Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad recently sat down in an interview with IGN Movies and spoke with them about the lineup of villains in the movie, and the producer’s vision for the direction it should take.
In one of my recent articles, I made a prediction for what the lineup of the Sinister Six would be in the movie. Unfortunately, neither Tolmach or Arad went into details about the lineup, other than confirming that it won’t necessarily be the ‘classic’ lineup. Avi Arad had this to say about it:
When you translate comic to film the word ‘classic’ means the first fifty issues. Because after that we all made changes; changes that had to do with science-fiction turning into science. I think just the need to move this world forward. So, of course we’ll make adaptations about these guys and what was their motivations because many of them have multiple motivations. It depends, is it ultimate Spider-Man? Is it Spider-Man? Is it some three-piece issue that takes them to space? We have a bigger responsibility to represent the character of the villain as it was conceived, because that way it will survive the test of time.
Matt Tolmach goes on to add:
Nothing is sacred. I mean it’s going to be the best Six that you can imagine, but it’s going to make sense in the world that we’re building.
Arad also gave us a little more insight on why they went with the Ultimate Spider-Man version of the Rhino instead of the ‘classic’ look, and it had everything to do with the fans:
…can you imagine seeing Paul Giamatti in a leather suit? I think they would have killed us. They gave us a hard time with the Lizard.
In a separate interview, Tolmach and Arad go on to give us their visions for the villains in Sinister Six. They each offered their own description of what the Sinister Six movie could be like. Here’s Tolmach’s take on the villains:
There’s no such thing as just a villain. There are villains by virtue of choices that people make but they always begin as humans, as characters. As flawed people; as tragic people. You know great movies have been made about a bunch of bad guys who get together to do something. Those are sometimes the greatest characters to watch. A bunch of broken people coming together for whatever reason.
Avi Arad had a different sort of take on how the villains should be, albeit in a similar vein as Tolmach’s vision:
As long as there’s that one thing in common: they’ll hate Spider-Man. They’ll hate him because he’s so different from them. But then, you know when you sit by yourself somewhere and you think about it, they all had a different life at one time and that’s what’s so beautiful about the Spider-Man universe. They have amazing stories if you look at it. And everybody’s looking for redemption; they’re unforgiven. Would you see one of the Sinister Six starting to feel like that? Yes. And people love it, by the way. They love when a villain finds his way back because we’re all very forgiving.
I’m all for character depth, but Arad’s vision for the villains makes it seem like he would have the villains try to seek redemption throughout the movie. It isn’t unheard-of for Spider-Man’s villains to periodically make the right decision at Spidey’s behest, and there have been villains who tried to completely turn their lives around (Eddie Brock, for instance), but I hope this doesn’t mean the villains will team up to perform grandiose feats of community service. That would completely demean the point of the Sinister Six in the first place. I’m no movie producer, but I’m not optimistic about how fans would take a supervillain ‘redemption’ piece.
Thoughts? Feel free to share your comments below!
