Silk: Spider Society TV Series Not Moving Forward at Amazon
Sony is shopping the Marvel television series to other buyers.
Sony's output of Marvel adaptations has gone into some interesting territory over the years, spanning a number of movie projects in both live action and animation. In recent years, the studio has announced plans to branch off the franchise into television — but apparently, one of their very first projects has hit a major snag. On Thursday night, reports indicated that Silk: Spider Society is no longer moving forward at Amazon MGM Studios, after it was first announced to be in the works back in 2020. This comes as another project in the Sony and Amazon collaboration, the Nicolas Cage-led Spider-Man Noir series Noir, was greenlit to debut on both MGM+ and Prime Video earlier this week. Despite this update, reports indicate that Silk: Spider Society is not necessarily dead, as Sony Pictures Television is shopping the show to other buyers.
According to reports, the decision not to move forward with Silk: Spider Society was made just a few days ago, and may have stemmed from the show's development woes, with the project reportedly undergoing multiple overhauls. The show had multiple episodes written before last year's Writers Guild of America strike, which led to the union threatening to sue Amazon when they did not revive the show's writers room last fall. Earlier this year, it was reported that nearly all of Silk: Spider Society's writers room was let go, outside of showrunner Angela Kang and a co-executive producer. The reported plan at the time was to reconfigure the show — which stars teenage superheroine Cindy Moon / Silk — to appeal to a male-skewing audience. This new reporting seems to corroborate as much, indicating that at one point, the writers room was asked "to reconfigure the show so it is not hanging so heavily" on Silk as a central character.
What Will Silk: Spider Society Be About?
According to previous cast listings, the Silk: Spider Society series would follow fan-favorite Marvel Comics character Cindy Moon, who has previously been described in casting descriptions for the series as a Korean-American between 19 and 29 years old who is a kid from Queens who is on her own for the first time. Although she's a total beginner in law enforcement and fighting crime, she is said to love the feeling of beating up criminals to let her frustrations out, and has an affinity for '80s and '90s pop culture. She also struggles with her identity and heritage, but she tries to focus on her family, friends, and relationships.
"It's a huge focus certainly for all of us here, and for me in particular. I was already a fan of Angela Kang, so I'm really, really excited to be working with her on Silk. She's just brilliant and a total pro," Amazon's Katherine Pope said in a 2023 interview. "This is also an example of working really closely with Tom Rothman and Sanford Panitch, and the motion picture group, to make sure that we are in lockstep with them and also executing at the same level. They've done such an incredible job with that franchise, so we want to make sure we're executing at that level."
h/t: Deadline
