Silver & Black

Silver & Black is an unproduced American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics characters Silver Sable and Black Cat that was to be made by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel and distributed by Sony Pictures. It was intended to be part of Sony's Universe of Marvel Characters, adjunct to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Development
It was reported in December 2009 that the Marvel Comics character Felicia Hardy would be introduced in Spider-Man 4, with Anne Hathaway being looked at to play the role. Julia Stiles, Rachel McAdams, and Romola Garai were also considered. Director Sam Raimi was believed to be taking the character in a different direction from the comics, having her become a supervillain named "Vulturess", to partner with John Malkovich as the Vulture, rather than the cat burglar known as Black Cat.[3] The next month, Sony announced that the Spider-Man franchise would be rebooted after Raimi decided to no longer pursue direct sequels to Spider-Man 3.[4] In January 2013, Felicity Jones was in talks to join the second film in the reboot series, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, as Hardy.[5][6] She does not take on the Black Cat persona in the film.[6]

In December 2013, Sony revealed plans to use The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to establish their own expanded universe based on the Marvel properties the studio had the film rights to, including Venom. Avi Arad and Matt Tolmach would produce the films as part of a franchise brain trust that also included Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, Jeff Pinkner, Ed Solomon, and Drew Goddard, and The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 director Marc Webb.[7] However, after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 underperformed and with Sony "under tremendous pressure to perform [that has them taking] a hard look at their most important franchise", the direction of the new shared universe was rethought. Development on a female superhero spin-off set in the expanded universe had begun, with Lisa Joy writing the screenplay, and a 2017 release eyed. Potential characters to be featured in the film included Hardy, Silver Sable, Stunner, Firestar, and Spider-Woman.[8] By October 2014, the planned film was known by the working title Glass Ceiling, and was set to be a team-up film featuring more than one of the female superhero characters connected to the Spider-Man comics.[9] In January 2015, Jones expressed interest in reprising her role of Hardy and exploring the Black Cat side of the character, but stated that there were no plans for her to do so.[6] The next month, Sony and Marvel Studios announced a new partnership that would see the latter produce the next Spider-Man film for Sony, and integrate the character into their Marvel Cinematic Universe.[10] Sony still planned to produce the spin-off films such as the female superhero film, but would do so without Marvel's involvement;[11][8] however, they were believed to have been "scrapped" by November 2015.[12]

Following the news that Sony had revived a Spider-Man spin-off featuring the character Venom in March 2017, the company was also believed to be "fast at work" on the female superhero spin-off as well, with Chris Yost rewriting Joy's script. Tolmach and Amy Pascal were set to produce the film, which would feature both Silver Sable and Black Cat, and would not crossover with the new film Spider-Man: Homecoming.[14] That May, Sony announced that its new shared universe would be named "Sony's Marvel Universe", beginning with Venom in October 2018.[15] The Silver Sable and Black Cat film was officially titled Silver & Black, and Gina Prince-Bythewood signed on to direct.[16] Emily Carmichael also pitched for the role.[17] A fan of big-budget genre films, Prince-Bythewood had been planning to take on such a film, but was already focused on a different project at the time. When she was shown the script for Silver & Black by Sony she "saw the movie in my head as I was reading it, and it’s an exciting thing as a director when you know what you want to do with it. I was able to be so specific, so it was exciting in those meetings because everything I was talking about, they loved." Filming was expected to begin in late 2017.[13]

Why It Was Cancelled
Gina Prince-Bythewood, who was to direct the film, was unhappy with the script which led to an indefinite delay in production while she and Sony re-developed the project.

Result
The film was cancelled in August 2018 and is expected to be re-worked into two separate films, starting off with a solo film focusing on Black Cat and another about Silver Sable following afterwards.