The challenge ahead for Sony’s ‘Black Cat’ movie

The news that Sony has dropped plans for Silver & Black in favor of solo movies for both lead characters — Spider-Man supporting characters Silver Sable and Black Cat — is somewhat complicated to unpack. That seems fitting for the undoing of a project that seemed difficult to fully comprehend when first announced.

On the one hand, it remains true that there’s little obvious crossover between the two characters — Silver Sable in comic book continuity is the daughter of a Nazi hunter; she became a mercenary in the U.S. while funneling her profits back to fund her home country (yes, really; even better, her real name is “Silver Sablinova”), while Black Cat is, as the name suggests, a Catwoman analog who later gains “bad luck powers” that make it a mistake to cross her path (again, yes, really). Their disparate origins made the idea of them teaming up for a movie somewhat unexpected, to say the least. On that level, at least, the idea of separating them and letting them exist in standalone movies is a good one.