There are certain talent personalities in Hollywood who have specific skills you call upon, and some writers and directors definitely specialize in big, event movies.
The Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci duo are obviously in such a category, having gone from working on Xena, to writing for JJ Abrams on Alias, to writing Transformers, Mission: Impossible III, all the way up to the rebooted Star Trek franchise.
So now that they have the long awaited Star Trek script finished, along with a third co-writer, Damon Lindelof who also penned Prometheus, what’s the next big tentpole to conquer? Well, Spider-Man of course. Obviously Sony has a lot of confidence in its upcoming Amazing Spider-Man reboot, which opens on July 3, because the sequel’s already set up and ready to go with production slated to kick off during the first quarter of 2013 for a release date of May 2, 2014.
As Variety reports, James Vanderbilt (Zodiac) – who wrote the first draft – was one of a number of writers who credited with the upcoming Spider-Man reboot before the Kurtzman/Orci team came on board for a re-write.
As producer and former Marvel CEO Avi Arad said in a statement, “it’s a thrill to have Alex and Bob put their stamp on this franchise that we all love so well. They have an innate understanding ofwhat makes Peter Parker not just a superhero but a hero for all of us.”
And in statement, Kurtzman and Orci both said, “We grew up huge Spider-Man fans so, to us, the opportunity to work on this film is akin to being handed the Holy Grail. We love the direction Sony and the filmmakers are taking the Peter Parker / Spider-Man mythology.”
In other superhero screenwriter news, Deadline reports that Zak Penn, who wrote X-Men: The Last Stand, The Incredible Hulk, Elektra, the TV series Alphas, and The Last Action Hero, as well as a story-by credit on The Avengers, has his own graphic novel series coming, Hero Worship, which will his store shelves this July via Avatar Press.
It will be a six issue series, co-written by Scott Murphy, who penned Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and illustrated by Michael DiPascale. Hero worship is about an indestructible superhero who has a stalker who eventually develops his own powers.
