Draft:Silk: Spider Society

Silk: Spider Society is a planned American television series developed by Angela Kang, based on the Marvel Comics character Silk. It is intended to be an installment in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU). The series is produced by Sony Pictures Television, Lord Miller, and Pascal Pictures, with Kang serving as showrunner.

After announcing plans for a new shared universe of films, Sony was revealed to be developing one based on Silk in June 2018. By the next March, Sony was expanding its universe to television, and began re-developing Silk as a series at the end of 2019. Lauren Moon was attached to write by September 2020, when Sony was in discussions with Amazon to release the series. Amazon hired Tom Spezialy in June 2021 as showrunner, though Kang was hired in November 2022 to re-develop the series when it was titled and set for Amazon's network MGM+. Production was suspended by the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike while the series underwent further re-development, before Amazon chose to no longer move forward with the series in May 2024 and returned it to Sony so the studio could shop the series to other networks.

Premise
Cindy Moon escapes imprisonment after being bitten by a radioactive spider, and is in search of her missing family.

Cast and characters

 * Cindy Moon / Silk: A Korean-American classmate of Peter Parker's who is also bitten by a radioactive spider.

Development and writing
In May 2017, Sony Pictures announced plans for a new shared universe, Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU), to feature Spider-Man-related properties beginning with Venom in October 2018. By the end of June 2018, Sony and producer Amy Pascal had begun development on a film featuring the character Cindy Moon / Silk, and were actively looking for a writer for the project. Moon was previously portrayed by Tiffany Espensen in Sony's Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), which Pascal described as being set in "the same world" as the new shared universe. Discussion of the project focused on Moon's Korean-American ethnicity, with Sony wanting to promote diversity among the lead characters of its universe. In December, Pascal announced that Cindy Moon / Silk would also be appearing in an animated Spider-Women film, but said the two versions of the character would be distinct. Silk comic creator Dan Slott felt they would still work together, with the animated film serving as a "world-wide publicity campaign" for the live-action film by introducing the character to female audience members. Pascal concurred with this, adding that they would "make each other better and bigger".

Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Tony Vinciquerra stated in March 2019 that the universe would be expanding to television with a set of Marvel projects developed by Sony Pictures Television. The studio was "essentially internally auditioning" characters from the 900 it could access to decide which medium they would appear in, and Silk was identified as a candidate for a television series in late 2019. Development on the series version began with Pascal remaining as producer, alongside Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, after Lord and Miller signed an overall deal to develop Sony's Marvel television series. Lauren Moon was in talks to write the series by September 2020, when Sony was in negotiations with Amazon to release the series on its streaming service Prime Video; Amazon was confirmed to have the streaming rights to the series in April 2021, and hired Tom Spezialy to serve as showrunner in June as part of an overall deal between Spezialy and Amazon Studios. Spezialy and Moon were set as executive producers of the series. Pascal Pictures and Amazon Studios were co-producing the series. In June 2022, Lord and Miller expressed excitement for the series and said that the scripts were completed and there would be updates provided for it "someday soon".

The series was titled Silk: Spider Society in November 2022, when it was intended to be the first in a number of series from Sony and Amazon centered on the Spider-Man-related characters available to Sony. Silk: Spider Society was set to debut on Amazon's linear network MGM+, before becoming available on Prime Video. At that time, Angela Kang was set to re-develop the series and serve as its showrunner and executive producer, as part of an overall deal with Amazon. The series' greenlight was said to be "script-dependent" and Kang's pitch was well received. The writers had worked on a number of episodes until May 2023, when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike and the writers' room was shut down as a result. After the strike ended in late September, Amazon Studios delayed re-opening the writers' room so executives could re-evaluate the series and its already written scripts, and the series was placed on hold by late November. Because of this, staff writers were still contractually obligated to the series without pay but were unable to pursue other opportunities at that time. The WGA threatened to take legal action against Amazon Studios in response. The Ankler reported it was unclear if the continued suspension of production was related to the strike or other production issues. The following month, the writers' room was set to resume work in mid-to-late January 2024, which had the potential to change depending on the script evaluation. In February, The Ankler further reported that, after work resumed for a few weeks, the series had paused the writers' room and let go several of its members to pursue other opportunities, except for Kang and one of the series' co-executive producers. The series had went through at least three different versions up to that point, one of which involved a request for Kang and the writers to focus less heavily on Silk and to re-develop it for a more "male-skewing" audience.

Amazon was no longer moving forward with the series by May 2024, and returned the rights to Sony so that studio could shop it to other potential networks. This came after further deliberations from Amazon regarding where to allocate their resources and spending, and was decided ahead of the company's upfront presentation where they announced the fellow SSU series Spider-Noir, which was chosen to proceed first instead of Spider Society. Amazon remained committed to their Marvel series with Sony, while Kang retained her overall deal with Amazon and was set to continue working on other projects for their studio. The Hollywood Reporter noted it was unclear if Sony could shop the series to Disney, which had previously released several MCU television series.

Casting
When development on the series was revealed, it was unknown if Tiffany Espensen would reprise her role as Cindy Moon / Silk from Spider-Man: Homecoming. By the end of April 2021, casting for the role was underway.

Filming
Principal photography was originally expected to take place from late August 2021 until early 2022, using the working title Hockey Queens, and then to begin in early 2022.

Release
Silk: Spider Society was initially set to debut in the United States on MGM+ before an intended international release on Amazon Prime Video.