As Sony prepares to unleash The Amazing Spider-Man 2, producers Matt Tolmach and Avi Arad are busy plotting the expansion of the studio’s Marvel franchise with spin-off movies for The Sinister Six and Venom, and during a chat with SFX the duo have revealed a little about their plans to develop a fully-fledged Spidey movie universe.

“It’s a challenge in every sense,” said Tolmach with regards to The Sinister Six. “Obviously questions of traditional hero/villain dynamics have to be looked at. At the same time it’s an awesome challenge, because some of the greatest characters are in fact villains, and how you construct that is so much fun. People love those bad characters if they’re good bad characters, and love to watch them. And nobody’s all good, nobody’s all bad, and so where we end up with that story, I think, is a really awesome challenge, and we all smile when we think about what you can do. It’s definitely a bad-ass group of people and I think it’s going to be a ton of fun to watch them.”

Meanwhile Arad offered a few thoughts on Venom and how they plan to position the fan favourite as an antihero: “Venom hated only one guy – Spider-Man. He wasn’t innately bad, he was a shortcut guy, not really into fighting hard for achievement. That’s the Venom story. Can he also be a good guy? As you know, Venom was also called ‘lethal defender of the innocent’. We had a great history with him, especially caring for the homeless, which is a very sensitive issue and something that many of us are very concerned with. Our villains all represent a different side of the misunderstood, and some of them unfortunately turned to the dark side. Venom happened to be a phenomenal character. With Eddie Brock, or if you do Flash Thompson, it doesn’t matter who is going to be inside the suit – what’s important is that a man like him is going to realize there comes a time when you wake up in the morning and say ‘How did I get here? There must be a better way.'”

It’s still early days for both movies, with Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods) busy writing The Sinister Six and Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Jeff Pinker (The Amazing Spider-Man 2) working on Venom. Meanwhile the franchise will continue with the release of The Amazing Spider-Man sequel, which swings into cinemas on April 18th in the UK and May 2nd in the States, followed by The Amazing Spider-Man 3 in 2016 and The Amazing Spider-Man 4 in 2018.