Draft:Nightwatch (upcoming film)

Nightwatch is an upcoming American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel. Distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, it is intended to be a film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU). The film is being written by Cheo Hodari Coker.

Sony was first known to be interested in developing Nightwatch for film in late 2016, before announcing plans for a new shared universe of films. Sony wanted Spike Lee to direct the film, and he was confirmed to be interested in March 2018 along with Coker's involvement. Lee ultimately decided not to take on the project.

Cast

 * Kevin Trench / Nightwatch: a doctor who takes the Nightwatch costume from the corpse of his older self, and fights to avoid his "inevitable fate".

Development
In September 2016, employees of Sony Pictures took a "real interest" in the Marvel Comics character Nightwatch, starting discussions of a potential film adaptation. In May 2017, Sony officially announced plans for a new shared universe, Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU), featuring Spider-Man-related properties beginning with Venom in October 2018. By September 2017, Sony was actively pursuing a Nightwatch film for their universe, with Ed Ricourt writing a script. Sony wanted Spike Lee to direct the film. Journalist Jeff Sneider compared the project to Marvel Studios' and Warner Bros.' respective Black superhero films Black Panther (2018) and Cyborg.

Lee was confirmed to be interested in the project in March 2018, and was described as "circling to direct" it. He would potentially direct the film following his work on BlacKkKlansman (2018), and would use a script re-written by Cheo Hodari Coker, the showrunner of Marvel's Luke Cage television series. Coker was trying to finish the script a month later, and said the project would be reassessed once he had finished his draft, as "it's not really real until [Lee] reacts to the script". Coker said working with Lee would be a "dream come true", and hoped to take advantage of the lessons he learned making Luke Cage while having the film be different from that series and also different from the original Nightwatch comics. He also felt that a film made by Lee and himself would "bring different stuff to it, and fun stuff. Not fun in a happy, shiny way, but fun from a dramatic, 'Oh, yo, I can't believe they went there' way." In October, Lee praised Black Panther for the impact it would have on black filmmakers getting films green-lit in the future, but said he was no longer planning to direct Nightwatch.