Sony

Has this ever happened to you? Your kid is browsing the ol’ digital video library for something fun to watch when they settle on Captain Phillips, that contemporary Tom Hanks feel good classic. Unfortunately, it has some “mature content,” like a handful of swears and intense moments, and you don’t even want to think about what Paul Greengrass’ camerawork is going to do to that kid. Lucky for you, Sony’s “Clean Version” initiative is here to sanitize all that questionable content, making several movies in their library fun for the whole family.

Breaking Bad fans have already given the series a second life in AMC’s Better Call Saul, but there may be yet a third layer to Walter White’s legacy. Creator Vince Gilligan has begun development of a virtual reality project based on the iconic meth drama, potentially with talent attached.

The deal between Marvel and Sony that allowed Peter Parker to join up with the Avengers is actually kind of extraordinary. More often than not — all the time, really — studios jealously hold tight to their superhero properties, often, as with Fantastic Four, making movies just so they can keep the rights. But Spider-Man allowed two studios to co-parent a character, allowing Spidey and other Avengers to ping-pong between movie universes, appearing in both. That deal seems like it may be up in the air after whatever follows Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Sony’s Spiderverse is steadily growing. With plans for at least one Venom movie announced last week, the wheel of spinoffs has been set in motion. Today, the studio announced it was working on a team-up movie with heroes Silver Sable and Black Cat, with a script by Chris Yost, who’s one of the writers of Marvel’s upcoming Thor: Ragnarok.

Sony’s Spideyverse is expanding. After negotiating for joint custody of Peter Parker with Marvel-Disney, the studio started planning a Venom spinoff, which today Sony is fast-tracking to an October 2018 release date.

File this one under ‘Least Surprising News Stories of the Day’: right on the heels of releasing the first trailer for Spider-Man: Homecoming, Sony has announced the release date for Spider-Man: Homecoming 2, proving that no title is so awkward as to prevent Hollywood from slapping the number ‘2’ on it and calling it a day.

With the success of 2015’s live-action Cinderella, Disney knew it had hit a gold mine. Plans for a live-action take on another favorite, Mulan, started being developed that same year, along with plans to adapt The Jungle Book, whose almost-completely-CGI take hit theaters earlier this summer and had a mighty good run at the box office. In a wild set of coincidences, Sony has also been working on live-action versions of The Jungle Book and Mulan, although their Jungle Book, directed by Andy Serkis, has been delayed to 2018. Both studios, however, are looking for Asian directors for their respective projects.

If you’re one of those people who thinks that this past summer proved that movies are dead, may I cheerfully offer you Hunt for the Wilderpeople as Exhibit A in Hollywood’s defense? Not only did Taika Waititi give us one of the year’s best films in his hilarious and moving coming-of-age film, he also reminded audiences that Sam Neill is the kindly uncle we all wish we had in real life. Movies like this are one of the big reasons that Marvel was so quick to snap Waititi up for the upcoming Thor: Ragnarok movie… and why the current state of cinema is as good as it’s ever been.

During that big Sony hack, emails revealed interesting plans for the Spider-Man universe, which included Drew Goddard’s Sinister Six film and an all-female Spidey character spinoff tentatively titled Glass Ceiling. When the studio teamed up with Marvel to reboot the web-slinger (again), those plans were taken off the table, but it looks like one project might be resurfacing (again).

Is it Free Comic Book TV day? Well, if the first episode of AMC’s Preacher weren’t enough to tide you over, Sony PlayStation’s Powers seems to have followed suit for Season 2. The full 2016 premiere is available online, free of charge.