10 Potential ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ Spin Off Movies – ScienceFiction.com

Provided by sciencefiction.com and written by Jason Motes

Last week, Sony Pictures Entertainment Co-Chairman Amy Pascal addressed investors regarding the studio’s plans for Spider-Man.  We already knew that there were going to be two additional movies ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movies, but Pascal stated, “We are going to access Marvel’s full world of Spider-Man characters, so be on the lookout for new heroes and villains.”

This could simply mean that they want to add more characters to the “Amazing Spider-Man” series, but they could potentially spin-off various characters into separate franchises that tie together, the way Marvel has with its line of movies.  Which of Spidey’s “Amazing Friends” do you want to see in their own movies?  Here are a few suggestions:

Honorable Mention: Golden Oldie (a.k.a. Aunt May)

Empowered by the cosmic devourer of worlds Galactus, Aunt May is to serve as his herald, locating populated world for him to consume in order to survive.  Instead, Golden Oldie locates a cosmic baker that makes delicious, planet-sized snack cakes in order to satisfy Galactus’ hunger.  This was a real comic!  Okay, it was a dream sequence and a parody of those delightfully corny Hostess snack cake ads that used to run in comics in the 70s and 80s.  But that would be something…

10. Rocket Racer

Marvel never missed the opportunity to jump on a fleeting fad, whether it was blaxploitation (Luke Cage), kung fu (Shang-Chi, Iron Fist) or disco (Dazzler, The Hypno Hustler).  Skateboarding was no exception.  Robert Farrell started off as a glorified purse-snatcher, zipping around on his rocket powered skateboard that allowed him to zoom up the sides of skyscrapers.  Ultimately, he turned over a new leaf and devoted his grinding skills to justice, just like Tony Hawk!  But hey, everyone loves a good redemption story!  (And this won’t be the only one on this list.)

9. Frog-Man

Eugene Patilo’s father created the spring-powered costume and embarked in a brief and unsuccessful career as Leap Frog.  Eugene took the suit and attempted to launch a career as a hero.  Unfortunately, he was quite bumbling and clumsy, yet things always seemed to work out in his favor.  Aw, c’mon… you know you want to see this costume in live action!  (And you thought Golden Oldie was bad!)

8. The Slingers

After DC’s ‘The Death of Superman’ story, Marvel… well, ripped it off.  Spider-Man was accused of murder, but simply could not keep himself from fighting crime, so he crafted four new suits and identities: the armored Prodigy, whose suit renders him bulletproof and super strong; Ricochet, who was super agile and had “danger sense” and could fling energy discs; Dusk who could blend into shadows and glide; and Hornet could fly and project tranquilizing darts.  Once the storyline wrapped, Marvel decided to give the identities to four new characters and spin them off into a team called the Slingers, who could possibly work in a movie.

7. The Prowler

Hobie Brown originally invented his special gadgets (inspired by Stilt-Man) in order to help him clean windows, but when he lost his job, he decided to turn to crime, briefly, but was discouraged from this lifestyle and became a close ally of Spider-Man’s even impersonating him in order to protect his secret identity.  He recently attended Stilt-Man’s funeral.  He’s also worked with The Outlaws and…

6. Silver Sable

International mercenary, Silver Sable leads a highly trained team of espionage experts known as the Wild Pack on globe-trotting adventures… for the right price.  Sable was trained from early childhood as a spy and combatant.  A Silver Sable movie could open up the Sony Marvel Universe, visiting nations other than the US.  Make her the female Jason Bourne of super heroes!

5. Morbius

Formerly a villain, Michael Morbius is a “Living Vampire,” after his scientific experiments gave him the traits of a supernatural vampire.  He vowed to only feed off of villains, but this brought him into conflict with Spider-Man and other heroes.  Vampires are still hot in movie and TV and he could bring a darker, supernatural element to super hero movies.

4. A Spider-Woman

And there have been several.  If you want a direct connection to Spider-Man, the closest you come is Martha “Mattie” Franklin, whose aunt (and guardian) Marla married J. Jonah Jameson.  Mattie possessed the powers of every Spider-Woman before her.  This includes the original Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, who technically has no connection to Spider-Man.  Jessica’s powers were the result of her parents scientific experimentation, giving her super strength, wall-crawling, flight, pheromone secretion, a spider-sense and bio-energy “venom blasts.”  Jessica was succeeded by Julia Carpenter who also had no connection to Peter Parker, but had the power to create psychic energy webs.  Technically, Julia could also get her own movie aside from the other two, as she later adopted the code-name Arachne.

3. Spider-Man 2099

In the year 2099, Miguel O’Hara worked for a powerful but corrupt corporation.  When he stood up to his boss, he was drugged.  In an effort to save his life, he underwent an experimental process that was sabotaged by his supervisor in an effort to kill him.  Instead, O’Hara gained spider-like powers similar to the classic Spider-Man’s but with a few twists.  He had fangs and talons.  He had biological spinnerets (albeit, they adapted those to Tobey Maguire’s take on the character) and perhaps most interestingly, he could move so fast that he left behind a visual decoy to fool his enemies.  He then battled futuristic versions of Doctor Octopus, The Green Goblin and others.  Sic-fi futuristic Spider-Man?  Sounds good to me!

4. Black Cat

Cynically, you could call Black Cat a blatant Catwoman rip-off and you would have a reasonable argument.  Upon encountering Spider-Man, she fell in love with him and utilized her criminal career in order to get his attention.  Eventually they began dating, but Felicia recoiled when Spider-Man revealed his identity to her, horrified that he was just a normal man under the mask.  They dated for a while more, but eventually broke up.  She went solo, but occasionally backslides into her criminal ways.  This could be a nice chance for Marvel to one-up DC by showing them how to make a real Catwoman movie!

1. Venom, Flash Thompson

Flash Thompson is one of Spidey’s most famous supporting cast members.  Originally, a thug who bullied Peter Parker in high school, after graduation, the two actually became good friends. Ironically, the entire time Flash was terrorizing Peter, he worshiped Spider-Man, despite public opinion being against the vigilante.  Eventually,  Flash enlisted in the military and had both his legs blown off in Iraq.  He enlisted in a secret government project and was bonded with the Venom symbiote.  With his new powers, he could regenerate his legs and had classic Venom powers, which he combined with his military expertise.

So what do you think?  Would you like to see movies based on Spidey’s supporting cast?  Are there any that you think would make better choices than these?  Comment below!

Star Trek Tricorder May Soon be a Reality – ScienceFiction.com

Provided by sciencefiction.com and written by Becky Feldman

Our inner Gates McFadden should be thrilled right about now. We are one step closer to a device inspired by Star Trek’s tricorder.

Scanadu, a startup company that created a small handheld scanner for doctors to read a patient’s vital signs, is currently seeking FDA approval for a device called the Scanadu Scout.

Ideally The Scanadu Scout would be a device that all consumers would own. The tiny square-shaped device would read your vital signs and send the information to your smartphone. Additionally, the Scout would also be able to assess your vital signs and possibly diagnose your symptoms.

You basically hold the small device to your forehead and within seconds the Scanadu Scout will be able to read your vitals. It is designed to measure your temperature and heart rate, in addition to other vitals including oxygen levels, blood pressure and respiratory rate.

The idea of a Scanadu Scout seems super efficient. You could save trips to the emergency room or arrive to your doctor’s office with your vitals already recorded.

“Our enemy is no longer fever. Our 21st-century enemy is cardiovascular,” stated Scanadu CEO Walter De Brouwer.

De Brouwer started an Indiegogo campaign and recently announced that Scanadu has $10.5 million in new funding from investors. In total, Scanadu has raised a total of $14.7 million. Scanadu plans to use these funds to expand their team as they seek FDA approval.

What do you think of this technology becoming reality?  Please share your opinion below.

Jellyfish are Taking Over the World

Provided by sciencefiction.com and written by Becky Feldman

After reading Gwynn Guilford’s article, “Jellyfish Are Taking Over the Seas, and It Might Be Too Late to Stop Them”, we can quite easily come to the conclusion that jellyfish will cause the end of times. Forget zombies. Forget robots. Forget aliens. Jellyfish will bring on the apocalypse, people. Here’s why:

1. Jellyfish can shut down power plants.

The Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden provides 10% of the country’s energy and it had to be shut down because blooms of moon jellyfish were clogging the cooling system. (A bloom is a population explosion of jellyfish.) Incidents like this have happened to power plants all over the world. Because the jellyfish population is constantly increasing (see reason 4), it can only mean more power plants will constantly be at risk. ‘Revolution‘ here we come!

2. Jellyfish are destroying fisheries.

Jellyfish blooms have caused the fishing business to lose billions of dollars. More importantly, they create obstacles for fisherman. Not only can jellyfish burst nets and clog trawl lines, there was an incident in Japan where a Nomura jellyfish, which is roughly the size of a refrigerator, capsized and sank a fishing boat!

3. Jellyfish stings can be deadly.

The box jellyfish may just be the deadliest creature on this planet. The venom the box jellyfish emits can kill you within four minutes. In the Philippines, 20 to 40 people die each year due to box jellyfish.

There’s also the Irukandji jellyfish which can constrict your airways and cause you to look like a meth addict. After that, it can lead to a brain hemorrhage. According to Scientific American, 1 out of every 5 persons stung by a Irukandji jellyfish ends up on life support.

4. The jellyfish population is constantly increasing.

Jellyfish reproduce via polyps, or bundles of jellyfish clones that eventually grow into baby jellyfish. However, these clones can create clones, creating an army of jellyfish! Ah! So many nightmares!

Furthermore, some types jellyfish can continue to procreate even after death. If you were cut open a jellyfish, the body can release even more polyps that will eventually create more jellyfish. This type of jellyfish is called the Benjamin Button jellyfish. (Did those jellyfish namers even see the movie? Okay, never mind.)

5. Humans are inadvertently aiding the jellyfish.

There a few reasons why we’re helping the jellyfish population. First of all, because of the fishing business, we’re getting rid of jellyfish predators for them. Because we utilize fish species that can kill off jellyfish, we’re helping jellyfish survive in various marine habitats.

Furthermore, we play a huge factor in jellyfish reproduction. Polyps need to cling on to hard surfaces into order to grow into jellyfish. These hard surfaces can be anything from pollution to piers, turbines and boats.

These are just a few of the reasons why we’re doomed due to jellyfish. Plus, research suggests that there many be nothing to stop the proliferation of jellyfish blooms. Let’s just hope we can see a ‘Jellyfish-nado’ movie sometime in the near future. That would be the only positive side effect.

Abrams Shares First “Star Wars: Episode VII” Photo

The following has been provided by ScienceFiction.com.

The wheels are certainly turning over at Lucasfilm as they prepare to go full swing into putting together ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’. After director J.J. Abrams and Lawrence Kasdan recently replaced Michael Arndt on scripting duties and the release date was pushed back to December of 2015 after requests of a longer delay were denied, it looks like the crew is really ready to jump into the pre-production process. What proof do we have of that? Well, Bad Robot’s Twitter feed has all the proof that we need.

The official Twitter account of Abrams’ production company released the first behind the scenes photo for ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ this week. The picture features the director with a few workers, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, and a very familiar droid that many have potentially been looking for.

Previously, there have been rumors of Anthony Daniels coming back to reprise his role as C-3PO, so we should have known that if that worry wart was around then his trusty companion wouldn’t be too far behind. Of course, this picture doesn’t exactly confirm Artoo’s involvement in the film, but it doesn’t deny it either. So until something official surfaces, let’s just assume that everyone’s favorite droid is the first cast member announced for the first installment of the new trilogy under the Disney banner.

After seeing this picture, are you excited to see that things are actually starting to happen for ‘Star Wars: Episode VII’? Do you think that this picture means that R2-D2 will be appearing in the movie? Besides Han, Luke, and Leia, who have already been rumored to return, what other beloved characters from the original trilogy would you like to see come back? Sound off in the comments.

‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ blasts off into theatrs on Decembeer 18, 2015.