Sony is preparing for more spiders to invade cinemas. Last week, Deadline announced that Marvel and Sony were developing a spin-off based on Marvel’s superhero ‘Silk’, the Korean-American Spider-Woman. Cindy Moon, one of Peter’s classmates, became a spider-woman in the same incident that gave Peter Parker his powers. Moon joins a line-up of Sony films that includes Venom, coming this October, Silver and Black (currently without a release date), and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse featuring Marvel’s Afro-Latinx Spider-Man Miles Morales. The trailers for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse features beautiful animation spotlighting a comic book style that fits in with Miles’ aesthetic. Keeping that in mind, we’d like to propose that Sony consider bringing Cindy and Miles into the same universe, giving her an animated movie spotlighting a different animation style. In this case? Korean animation.
In the comics, Moon develops powers similar to Peter Parker with a few minor differences. She can shoot webs out of her fingertips instead of out of her wrist, she has a photographic memory, and her spider-sense is considerably stronger then Peter’s. While she doesn’t have his level of super strength, she’s also faster, adding a different perspective to Marvel’s Spider-Verse. She’s got a considerably different perspective on being a spider-person and while she and Peter have some unusual interactions, bringing Cindy and Miles together could be a great way to build up Sony’s animation studio that’s poised to make a major amount of money thanks to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Korean animation has a long history. Beginning with Gaekkum, a character created in 1936, the art form quietly progressed behind US and Japanese animation. It wasn’t until 1987 with Dooly the Dinosaur starring in a six part series that the industry began to take off. Dooly the Dinosaur spawned a company called Dooly world and paved the way for the character market in Korean animation. 2003’s Pororo the little penguin was one of the first films that developed a direct contact with the Walt Disney Company, paving the way for South Korea to make major contributions to animation. The industry went through a crisis during the 2000’s, facing a dwindling pool of artists. Pororo and Origami Warriors helped renew interest in the industry getting audiences interested in new animations.
Sony working with a Korean director (much like Sony working with a Peter Ramsey to develop Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) would be a great boost to an industry that already has people excited and interested in discovering new properties. Most animated films are drawn in South Korea anyway, and Sony being willing to work with Korean directors to tell Cindy Moon’s story and use their animation techniques would go a long way to having the films collide. Developing a unique look for Cindy based on Korean animation styles would also continue the visual feast that Sony seems intent on putting out with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Imagining a world of spider-characters created by various artists and drawn a certain way would be a great way to illustrate the unique backgrounds that each character has come from.
The Silk picture is being produced by Amy Pascal. Pascal, known for championing strong female roles, put Moon in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Portrayed by Tiffany Espensen, there’s no reason that Sony couldn’t bring Cindy into an animated feature as well. There are multiple stories that could be told with Silk, and with rumors that Miles might also be joining Peter Parker in the MCU, Cindy should have the same opportunity.
Much like the Ultimate Spider-Universe and Marvel’s 616 universe however, there could easily be two different universes (one live action, one animated) featuring two different Peter Parkers. One Parker, older, could be a mentor to Cindy Moon and Miles, not to mention the other spider-characters. The other could feature a younger Peter Parker and his friends. Sony would be the winner either way and they’d have an opportunity to create something gorgeous by giving Cindy Moon an animated feature as well.