Sony is developing a new Spider-Man TV show that will reportedly be in the style of DC Studios' Lanterns. Coming off Spider-Noir's recent cancellation at Amazon Prime Video, Sony Pictures Television is reportedly nearing a greenlight for its next live-action Spider-Man TV show. The series is written by American Born Chinese creator Kelvin Yu and is said to adapt Marvel Comics' second Spider-Man Clone Saga, which centers on two vastly different Peter Parker clones.
According to scooper Daniel Richtman, the untitled Clone Saga series will be a "buddy cop-style" and similar to DC Studios' recent HBO hit, Lanterns. The Amazon Prime Video original will follow Kaine Parker and Ben Reilly as its aforementioned buddy cops - akin to Aaron Pierre's John Stewart and Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan - as they "discover they're clones."
In its original report on the Spider-Man spin-off show, Deadline reported hearing conflicting information about the storyline. Some sources noted that Ben and Kaine will "grapple with their newly discovered identities" and end up "facing other clones," which sounds in line with the details that Richtman scooped.
However, other sources claimed that Sony's new Marvel show could entirely change Ben and Kaine's origins as clones, as they "take on new identities." Regardless, the report made it clear that the studio could make major changes to the Clone Saga comics, using them only as "inspiration."
Lanterns has recently been a hot topic in the comic book fandom, as DC Studios and HBO have reinvented the Green Lantern mythos through a grounded lens as a prestige buddy-cop detective drama inspired by True Detective.
Sony isn't the only one edging closer to a Marvelized Lanterns, as Marvel Television is working on its own "detective" project for the MCU. The rumored Special Presentation may similarly capitalize on the DCU series' success, while Marvel Studios is cooking up its own Lanterns replacement for the big screen.
How Sony's Spider-Man Clone Saga Show Could Be Its 'Lanterns' Replacement
Sony Pictures Television was reportedly grappling with four pitches for Spider-Man TV shows, planning to greenlight only "one or even two." While it remains a mystery what the other creatives' concepts involved, it seems entirely intentional that the buddy-cop premise was chosen after Lanterns' massive success.
The Marvel show may adopt the familiar buddy-cop formula seen recently in Lanterns, in which two leads with vastly different personalities and approaches to heroism must set aside their differences for the greater good. In this case, the greater good may be taking down other, more disastrous clones, before ultimately taking the fight to their original creator, likely Miles Warren, aka The Jackal.
While Ben Reilly is a stable, near-perfect duplicate of Peter Parker, Kaine Parker was a prior clone with genetic flaws that left him unstable and suffering through early life, resulting in a more angry, violent, and murderous replica.
As Ben and Kaine are both Peter Parker clones, albeit to different degrees of success, there is a high chance that one actor will pull double duty as the leads. That creates a key difference to Lanterns, as Ben and Kaine would be contemporaries without the age gap that the DCU's Emerald Knights have.
Still, Kaine could take on Hal Jordan's role as the cynical, deeply pessimistic of the pair, albeit dialed up to extremes with a murderous side. That would leave Ben Reilly as the John Stewart counterpart, though he is likely to be more fun and quippy than the somewhat stoic, composed DCU paramour.
One of the biggest criticisms of Lanterns has been a lack of superheroic Green Lantern action, possibly due in part to budget constraints. Fans can only hope that the next Spider-Man show doesn't suffer the same problem, although its budget is likely to be reined in from Spider-Noir, which reportedly "fell victim to its price tag" as the series' viewership failed to justify its expensive costs.
Lanterns may have inadvertently ushered in a brand new era for superhero TV, one more open to less comic-booky elements and a prestige lens. While DC Studios is already in early development on Lanterns Season 2, no renewal has been officially announced yet ahead of the looming finale.
