This is barely news, since Sony announced that they wanted to make six Spider-Man films after Spider-Man 2 drenched theaters in its gooey web fluid of love, but new Marvel Studios Kevin Feige (a dude who supposedly is about as big a Marvel comics geek as any guy who spends all day on the Newsarama boards flaming Geoff Johns) tells MTV that Marvel wants to keep the series going on for at least 20 more years, and quite possibly until the eventual heat death of the universe.
"There will be many more Spider-Man films to come," he promised. "We already have stacks of ideas for the next one because of the wealth of stories in the comics. We could be making Spider-Man movies for the next 20 years, based on the 50 years of Spider-Man history we have."
Here’s a hint at what you might expect from Spider-Man 4, as per my exclusive interview with Avi Arad, the outgoing Marvel Studios president who is still quite involved on the creative side – the Lizard. Avi tells me it’s his favorite villain, and God knows the character is set up enough… especially after the events of 3, apparently. I swear this interview is coming soon.
Of course further Spider-Man movies probably won’t have the same talent involved, in front of or behind the cameras. Hopefully Marvel and Sony have the good sense to not turn this franchise into the new Bond series, with a bunch of weak directors taking their marching orders from the producers. And a creative crew change has never stopped Spider-Man in the comics, so why would it stop him in the movies?
By the way, there’s something else Feige says in the MTV interview that I want to bring up. There’s this rumor going around on our message board (and maybe elsewhere) that Galactus isn’t in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. This seems unlikely to me, but even moreso after reading this quote: "Silver Surfer is herald to a very big thing known as the World Devourer, and needless to say, the Fantastic Four may be encountering him next summer.” Why would Feige tease Galactus to the not-as-comic-savvy MTV audience? Now Galactus may not be seen in the form we are used to (I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Ultimate Galactus hive being show up, since it seems less silly than a big guy with a skirt and a weird helmet), but it really seems to me that he’ll be in the film.