Sony's starting a secret new Marvel movie and it could star Madame Web

Another new Marvel movie is coming from Sony Pictures and its starring character could be a first for the company.

Variety reports that director S.J. Clarkson (Jessica Jones) has signed up to develop the project, which is set to be the first female-centric movie in Sony's growing catalogue of films based on Marvel characters – now officially called the Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters or SPUMC.

According to the trade publication, the project is still extremely early in development and there is a "strong possibility" that it will be a Madame Web movie. If that's true, then that aligns with the previously rumoured Madame Web movie.

In the comics, Madame Web appears as a blind, elderly woman in declining health who is a powerful clairvoyant. That would make her an atypical star for a superhero movie, since Web doesn't do your typical action-packed superpower stuff like punching bad guys. However, one of her best-known roles had her sending Peter Parker across the multiverse in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which could be ripe for setting up the Tom Holland Spider-Man cross-universe teases that Disney has put out there.

The one sure thing is that it's being led by S.J. Clarkson. While all of her credits up to this point are in television, she has previously directed episodes of both Jessica Jones and The Defenders, so she already has some established Marvel cred.

Venom 2 is set to hit theatres in 2021 due to a COVID-19 driven delay in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as is Morbius. Hopefully, by the time they hit the big screen, we'll have a better idea of Sony's secret new Marvel project.

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar+.