Rumor: Sony Has Plans for a ‘Nightwatch’ Movie in Its Spidey-Verse

If you, like me, find yourself down the rabbit hole of comic book conspiracy theories, you might eventually come across the case of Nightwatch, the Manhattan time-traveling superhero whose costumes and powers bears a striking resemblance to Todd McFarlane’s Spawn. Adding to this speculation is the fact that Marvel introduced Nightwatch less than a year after McFarlane left to start his own comic book company. Did Marvel basically steal Spawn from an ex-employee? Were there ongoing legal battles we should’ve been reading about this whole time? Are we missing out on superhero drama?!

We might be about to find out, because to hear at least one Hollywood insider say it, Sony is about to shine a bright spotlight on the character of Nightwatch. On this week’s episode of Meet The Movie Press (via Heroic Hollywood), host Jeff Sneider shared a choice rumor he’d heard about Nightwatch and the possibility of a new entry in the Sony Spider-Man universe:

I’m told that Ed Ricourt has been hired to write a Nightwatch movie for Sony and Marvel that will be set in the Spider-Man universe… It will follow Dr. Kevin Trench, who, after finding a dark costume on the body of his older, slain self, becomes the hero known as Nightwatch… [I’m] pretty confident that Sony is developing a Nightwatch movie, that Ed Ricourt is going to write it, but here’s the kick, and this is not confirmed by any stretch: I hear Sony wants Spike Lee to direct it.

Back in 2016, it was reported by Bleeding Cool that Sony employees had quietly begun buying up old copies of the Nightwatch run, leading to the rumor that Kevin Trench and/or Nightwatch would cameo briefly in Spider-Man: Homecoming. While that didn’t turn out to be the case, we’ve since seen Sony double down on their separate cinematic universe, and introducing a few non-white superheroes to the mix  —  especially ones that are practically the same another popular comic book and film franchise  —  is a great next step for the studio. We’ll see if Nightwatch joins Venom and Silver & Black as the core components of Sony’s brand new Spider-verse, but this is the first bit of news that has me a little excited to see what Sony has in mind.