Those with some apprehension toward 2017’s Marvel Cinematic Universe-set Spider-Man movie got some good news, and potentially some bad news from Marvel Studios boss, Kevin Feige this weekend.
The good news, for those weary of the same old mutant spider bite and Uncle Ben murder, is the new Spider-Man movie won’t be an origin story! Apparently, a teenager has already been running around New York City in a homemade Spider-Man costume, mastering his Spidey powers in secret, and thus, the movie will assume that Peter Parker has already been developing his persona as Spider-Man for a couple of years now. This likely means that Uncle Ben will already be dead when the movie starts, and it’s probable that the details of Peter’s spider bite will probably be done in quick flashbacks, if at all, as with the re-telling of Hulk’s origin in a botched gamma experiment during 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, which rebooted the character for the then-fledgling MCU, a mere five years after 2003’s self-contained Hulk hit theatres.
Therein may lay the bad news for Miles Morales campaigners however. Kevin Feige has now bluntly stated, with no room for interpretation, that a teenage Peter Parker will be the MCU’s Spider-Man, both for his debut in next year’s Captain America: Civil War, and in the 2017 Spider-Man movie, not Miles Morales. Peter will also be around 15 or 16 years old, likely played by a young actor around that age range, with Feige claiming that Spidey’s youth will be a big way to set him apart from other high-profile MCU heroes like Iron Man and Captain America.
Despite his avid cult following of fans, the alternate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, who replaced Peter Parker in Marvel’s Ultimate Universe line of comics, suffers poor comic sales in contrast to Peter Parker’s mainline Marvel Universe Spider-Man, who is still Marvel’s flagship character in sales and popularity by a considerable margin, even if the massive success of the MCU has significantly increased comic sales for formerly B-list characters like Iron Man and Thor. This is no doubt a considerable part of the reason why Marvel Studios and Sony don’t think it’s a good idea to introduce a big screen Spider-Man that isn’t Peter Parker, even now, as it wouldn’t make good business sense, considering that Morales is more of a cult favourite, whereas Parker is the Spider-Man that the vast majority of people think of when they imagine the character. It’s no doubt that an attempt to replace Parker with Morales (especially if Parker was introduced just to be killed off), would be met with scorn outside of comic book circles, and with Morales likely being seen by general moviegoers as an impostor.
Lastly, Feige confirmed that the new Spider-Man costume has already had its design finished, since casting is almost complete on choosing a new Spidey for the MCU, and it just hasn’t been made public yet. Feige teases that the costume is different than the former costumes worn by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in Sony’s former attempts to bring the Wall-Crawler to the big screen, and yet, is still faithfully classic Spidey. So, basically, there aren’t any real clues there.
Keep slinging Eggplante for all news and updates on the Spider-Man movies, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe at large.