Before Tom Holland became the friendly neighborhood Web-Head and destroyed every box office record under the sun, there were big plans afoot for Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man. In 2014, it was announced that Drew Goddard would direct a Sinister Six movie featuring – you guessed it – the Sinister Six. The Amazing Spider-Man 2‘s end credits scene revealed the villainous lineup would consist of Green Goblin, Kraven the Hunter, Mysterio, Rhino, Doctor Octopus, and the Vulture.
Now, we’re not going to get into all the gory details about what happened to derail this project, since it’s been covered ad nauseam everywhere else, but the long story short is that Garfield’s tenure as Spidey ended after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (he returned in Spider-Man: No Way Home, though). While Sony didn’t outright cancel the plans for The Sinister Six straight away, the chances of making the movie spiraled right back down to zero after the Sony hacks, Garfield’s departure, and Holland’s announcement as the new Spider-Man.
Since then, fans have wondered about The Sinister Six movie and how it could have been tackled. Thanks to artist Victor Martinez, more information has surfaced. Posting on his Instagram account, Martinez shared concept art of an unmasked Spider-Man falling out of the sky and plummeting toward an island. Alongside the pics, Martinez wrote the following caption, “SPIDER-MAN. Sharing with you some concept art I did for an unmade/untitled Spider-Man film from years ago. This would’ve been a fun one with lots of villains… 6 to be exact!… iykyk.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Martinez is talking about The Sinister Six film here. What’s interesting, though, is this specific shot of Spidey falling toward the island. It hints that the plot might have involved the villains getting the Web-Head to the island, where he would have been isolated and they would have had the advantage. At the same time, it could have been a neat homage of sorts to Kraven’s Last Hunt.
The whole Spidey-vs.-the-Sinister-Six-on-an-island tracks with what Goddard previously said about the movie on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. “What I loved about summer annuals in the comic book world, is you had this serialized story,” he said. “And then, every summer, there would be a giant-sized issue that had nothing to do with the serialized story, where the main character usually got yanked out of the normal life and thrown into an insane situation. That’s what I wanted to do with Spider-Man. I just felt like that would be fun, and let’s go for it, and let’s sort of throw all the things that I love about Spider-Man in there.”
Alas, Goddard’s Sinister Six film never came to fruition, and it’s yet another what-if situation in the wild world of comic book movies. Holland’s Spidey came close to facing off against the infamous villain team in No Way Home, though the film was one rogue short of making it half a dozen. Could it still happen in the future? Anything is possible, because after Spider-Man: Brand New Day‘s extraordinary box office haul, there’s no way any studio will want him to stop playing the Web-Head anytime soon.
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