It’s official: the new Spider-Man will be Peter Parker – not his successor in the comic books, Miles Morales, or anyone else who has donned the Spider-Man mask over the years. And the reboot (number 3, if you’re keeping count) will focus far more than ever before on Parker’s experiences in high school.
That’s all according to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who, after the surprise Sony-Marvel deal earlier this year, is now helping to oversee the creative direction of the Spider-Man films.
In an interview with Collider, Feige explains the decision to keep Parker in high school:
Some of my favorite Spider-Man arcs and Spider-Man stories — he’s in high school for a lot of it. We want to explore that. That also makes him very, very different from any of our other characters in the (Marvel Cinematic Universe), which is something else we want to explore: how unique he is when now put against all these other characters.
He added that a high-school-aged Parker opens the doors to exploring storylines from the comics that have yet to be developed on the silver screen:
There are so many things from the comics that haven’t been done yet. Not just characters or villains or supporting characters, but sides to his character. The most obvious being the young, doesn’t quite fit in kid before his powers, and then the fella that puts on a mask and swings around and fights bad guys.
The past 2 reboots have seen Parker graduate high school relatively quickly, leaving little time for exploring the dynamics of a superhero at that age.
The Marvel Studios executive says that Parker will like be 15 or 16 years old in the first film, which is set to come out on 28th July 2017.
Whatever age Parker is supposed to be, the next Spider-Man actor will most certainly be older — both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield played high-school-age versions of Parker despite being in their late 20s and early 30s during filming.
Meanwhile, Latino-Review reported that Marvel has tapped Drew Goddard to write and direct the upcoming Spider-Man film. Goddard, who was originally onboard to direct the standalone “Sinister Six” spinoff, will be involved in making Spider-Man fit to join the Avengers, along with building up his conflict with the Sinister Six in the long run. That said, plans could certainly change since the film is in the very early stages.
We’re expected to get our first look at the new Spider-Man in next year’s “Captain America: Civil War“.
Full MCU movie slate is as follows:
- Avengers: Age of Ultron – 1st May 2015
- Ant-Man – 17th July 2015
- Captain America: Civil War – 6th May 2016
- Doctor Strange – 6th November 2016
- Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – 5th May 2017
- Spider-Man Reboot – 28th July 2017
- Thor: Ragnarok – 3rd November 2017
- Avengers: Infinity War – Part 1 – 4th May 2018
- Black Panther – 6th July 2018
- Captain Marvel – 2nd November 2018
- Avengers: Infinity War – Part 2 – 3rd May 2019
- Inhumans – 12th July 2019
