The long-running partnership between Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Sony is reportedly set to end, following disagreements over Spider-Man: Noir.
A story has popped up over at Puck that claims things are not going particularly smoothly on the live-action Spider-Man: Noir project that’s set to feature Nicolas Cage as a hard-boiled alternative universe take on the Spider-Man character.
An animated version of the character popped up in Sony’s Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse and its sequel, Across The Spider-Verse. A third entry in that series was due to arrive in March of this year but was delayed with stories suggesting that too many revisions to the project were making the animation workflow very difficult in terms of meeting deadlines.
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are the co-writers behind those films and are hands-on in their roles as producers. Back in 2019, Sony reportedly signed the duo to a five-year, nine-figure TV deal because their track record speaks for itself: The LEGO Movie rewrote the formula for product-based children’s movies on its way to earning almost half a billion dollars at the box office (on a budget of $60m) while the two Spider-Verse films have been astounding successes on every level. An important factor for a studio like Sony that can’t seem to figure out Spider-Man films without help (be it that of Miller and Lord or Marvel Studios).
Read more: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse review | Every Spider-person all at once
However, the relationship between Sony and Miller and Lord is said to have broken down following ‘heated’ disagreements about the budget for Spider-Man: Noir.
Whether that puts the film in jeopardy we don’t yet know, but hopefully an accord can be reached by both sides. If not, the availability of Miller and Lord will surely see another studio sweep in to tie them up to a new deal. Despite the creative challenges that are sometimes associated with their projects (such as their firing from the Star Wars spin-off, Solo, and the reports of endless revisions on the Spider-Verse films), they’ve consistently delivered strong, successful films.
More on all of this as we hear it.
