‘Silk: Spider Society' Writers Room 'Paused' at Amazon
I’m told Nicolas Cage is circling ‘Spider-Man Noir’ as that project gains steam; WGA had threatened a lawsuit after the streamer kept writers rooms on ice post-strike
Clarification: We’ve updated the story below to reflect that the Silk writers room has been “paused,” according to sources close to the studio, though the show remains in active development. An earlier version said that the room had been scrapped. In the meantime, many writers and staffers on the series have been released to pursue other work.
The hotly anticipated Silk: Spider Society has “paused” its writers room, releasing writers to pursue new work, minus its showrunner, even as the show remains in active development, sources close to the show tell The Ankler.
Deadline had previously reported that the Silk writers room was set to reconvene in mid to late January. The Ankler learned that the show had been back only a few weeks before writers and their reps were informed of the pause this past week.
The series was the first of several live-action Marvel-Sony co-productions to get the green light from Amazon. Also in the works is Spider-Man Noir, where I’m told Nicolas Cage is in serious talks to take on the lead role on the series, which will be set in 1930s New York City. Sony declined to comment.
A source close to the studio says that Angela Kang, who has a multi-year overall deal with Amazon, will continue to act as showrunner for the series that centers on Korean-American heroine Cindy Moon, who, according to reports of the logline, is bitten by the same spider that bit Peter Parker and goes searching for her missing family. The series is also produced by Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.
One source close to the series claims that Silk was being refocused with a more male-skewing audience in mind. Amazon had no comment. The studio and its streaming arm Prime Video have found success with a number of male-skewing series, including Reacher, Jack Ryan and The Terminal, though more female-skewing YA series such as The Summer I Turned Pretty have also performed well. Sony currently has another Spidey-verse title in circulation, with Dakota Johnson starrer Madame Web in theaters this week — the film opened to poor reviews and is largely expected to underperform.
Sources had previously told me that the Silk writers room had been a number of episodes deep into the season before the strike began. After the Writers Guild of America strike ended last September, several shows were still on ice at Amazon Studios, even as other series across town revived their writers rooms and sent shows back into production.
In November, the WGA had sent a sternly worded letter to Amazon, informing the studio that “their failure to recommence a number of writing rooms after the strike is a violation of the Strike Termination Agreement (STA) between the WGA and AMPTP.”
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