Gina Prince-Bythewood will stay on the comic book beat by directing The Old Guard for Skydance, as the followup to her efforts on the pilot for Marvel's Cloak & Dagger TV show. At the same time, however, she will remain attached to helm Sony's Silver & Black comic book adaptation, which is currently stuck in development.
Silver & Black, a movie featuring the Spider-Man antiheroes Silver Sable and Black Cat, was at one point set to reach theaters in February 2019 and serve as the second entry in Sony's Spider-Man antihero film universe after this October's Venom. However, the movie hit a snag on its way down the pipeline and its script has since gone "back to the drawing board", as Prince-Bythewood herself confirmed but a few weeks ago. By comparison, The Old Guard adaptation (which is being written by the original comic book's co-creator, Greg Rucka) has been steadily moving forward since May 2017, and is now on-course to begin production under Prince-Bythewood's supervision this year.
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Omega Underground broke the news about Prince-Bythewood being in talks for Old Guard earlier today. THR has since reported that she is now signed on to direct the film and is gearing up to begin shooting by this fall for a 2019 release target. As for The Old Guard's source material, it began its run over at Image Comics in February last year and revolves around an inexplicably immortal group of soldiers (led by a woman named Andy) whose existence is threatened in the present-day, when a sinister organization captures photographic evidence of their inability to die.
Prince-Bythewood isn't the only one keeping busy while the Silver & Black script gets a complete overhaul. Sony is similarly moving forward with additional Spider-Man antihero movies in its place, in particular a Morbius the Living Vampire film starring Jared Leto and directed by Daniel Espinosa (Life). The studio also has a Nightwatch movie being written by Luke Cage creator Cheo Hodari Coker - and potentially directed by Spike Lee - in the pipeline, to go along with Silver & Black. However, at the moment, it's looking like Morbius will be the first Spider-Man ancillary character vehicle to enter production after Venom.
All in all, this seems like a win-win situation for all concerned parties. Prince-Bythewood now gets to go and make another comic book movie - one featuring multiple female leads and women of color, no less - and Silver & Black will have the time its needs to properly come together, before the filmmaker rolls camera on that Sony project. Likewise, The Old Guard itself sounds like an interesting new addition to the developing slate of comic book films and gives fans another exciting Greg Rucka adaptation to look forward to (along with Ridley Scott's Queen & Country).
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We will bring you more details on The Old Guard and Silver & Black as they become available.
Source: Omega Underground, THR