After a brief defection away from the Marvel Universe it seems the time has come for our friendly neighborhood Spider-man to have a homecoming.
This comes with the announcement that Sony and Disney owned Marvel Studios are combining their collective strengths to reboot the wall crawler and in doing so open up the Marvel Cinematic Universe to massive possibilities. Though normally rivals, surely this coalition between two giants of the film industry can only be a good thing, I know that my spider sense is starting to tingle, just a little.
Now you may have seen that GWW has mentioned reboots before in our previous topics, if you didn’t know, where have you been? Some of the issues that were mentioned may still be on our minds with this latest effort but one thing is clear, with these two heavyweight studios joining forces it’s obvious that they aren’t pulling any punches. And that’s enforced with the project bringing together Amy Pascal of Sony (currently working on the Ghostbusters reboot) and Marvels King of producing Kevin Feige (basically everything Marvel over the last 15 years) to push the franchise in the right direction.
Our first look at the web-slinger is expected to be in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, fitting in with the comic storyline, which once again givesus Chris Evans as Mr Patriotic himself, Steve Rodgers, squaring off with the Billionaire charmer Tony Stark aka Iron-Man played by Robert Downey Jr, and is due out in 2016. What role Spidey will play in this is unclear, but with him featuring we can be sure that he’s back for a while.
Who will play the Character however is still unclear as Andrew Garfield, who played the wall crawler in Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2, will not be returning as Peter Parker in the next installments, reprising a role that I believe he did well to make his own. In fact it has been suggested by many super fans of the MCU across most forms of social media that, perhaps, Miles Morales could be used instead of Peter Parker. Now I have said before, if you do a reboot try and keep true to the original concept or what came before and I stick by that. But personally I think this is a very good idea to use Morales, as it would give the reboot the chance to develop a new direction for the character, which would help it set itself apart from previous incarnations, and maybe open itself up to a new audience. Plus Miles is already in the Marvel world, taking up
the mantle of our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man after the death of Peter at the hands of the Green Goblin. It would be a brave choice indeed, not many people would know of the young teen, but surely with the creative powers within Sony and Disney such a twist cannot be ruled out, can it?
The other issue is what villain will be used when the first film is finally announced? It has been mentioned by our own GWW crew that the Kingpin, not seen on screen since his appearance in Daredevil, or Spider-Slayers would be a good choice, not jumping straight in with a Super-villain or even reusing one from the previous films, such as Doctor Octopus or Green Goblin. Anyone familiar with the comics will know of the likes of Kraven the Hunter, Rhino or even Cletus Kasady aka Carnage. Simply put, with the right direction and time (something that was supported in my reboot article, here), we have the potential to open up the MCU, giving Feige and Marvel the chance to continue the good work that they have started with the multitude of box office smashes delivered over the last decade, and take Sony along for the ride.
Lots of questions remain unanswered and only time will tell what direction Feige, Pascal and the Sony/Marvel have up their collective sleeves. But one thing I do know is that for fans like us, it’s an exciting time to be geek.