Spider-Man Follow Up

by Josh

So I wanted to provide some follow up thoughts to the news regarding Spider-Man. I previously posted my thoughts when this all initially went down here. On April 11, Collider released an interview with Kevin Feige regarding the future of the Spider-Man franchise, and personally, everything sounds pretty good to me as far as the direction Spider-Man will be going.

So when the new Spider-Man was announced, Kevin Feige said that they will not be rehashing the origin story yet again (it would be the third time in 15 years if they did), and that Spider-Man has already been around in the MCU. It does seem a little strange that none of the Avengers have heard of Spider-Man yet, but I have faith that Marvel knows how to play this. For one, just because we haven’t heard anyone in the MCU talk about it, doesn’t mean they haven’t. In the coming films, they can even sort of “retcon” this by having Spider-Man come up in conversation and say something to the effect of, “What is that guy up to again?” telling the audience that MCU has heard of this guy. Maybe so far Spider-Man has been handling small-time villains, and even helped save some people during the Kree invasion during The Avengers, we just never saw what he did. That is sort of the approach Marvel’s show Daredevil took, nodding to the events of The Avengers in the show, and how its destruction affected Hell’s Kitchen.

As far as no origin story, I can completely understand why this is being skipped. We have seen it twice now on the big screen, and it is probably one of the most well-known origin stories of all comic book characters. What I would like to see is maybe having the Ant-Man end credits stinger just doing a quick scene or montage of Peter Parker’s origin, and that be it. It would be a great way to build excitement for Spider-Man showing up in Civil War, and eventually his own standalone movies.

The age of Peter Parker is confirmed as a high school student, which I am all right with. I would prefer a college Spider-Man, but the good news is that I am sure we will have plenty of Spider-Man movies, which will lead into his college days. A young high school Peter Parker could present some fun interaction between the other Avengers, though. Especially combining Parker’s science knowledge, he could provide a witty, snarky counter to Tony Stark’s banter.

Some people might be disappointed that Miles Morales was not the pick for Spider-Man this go around. There are some good points to bringing in that character instead: It is a completely different origin story, provides a different character to the screen that we haven’t seen, and provides some diversity in what is a primarily white, male dominated movie franchise.

I prefer Peter Parker’s character, and I think the general public would too. Peter Parker has so many stories that can still be used, and I think his “geekiness” and brains will fit him right in with Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, the other smart guys of the Avengers. The main reason being is that the general movie-going audience doesn’t know who Miles Morales is. Also, for some diversity, Parker could be cast as a different ethnicity other than white. Peter Parker is a very Caucasian name, but it still could be done I think.

As for who will play Spider-Man, Asa Butterfield seems to be the leading man for the job, but there have been rumors lately that there are 6 actors being looked at for the role, the other 5 being Tom Holland, Judah Lewis, Charlie Plummer, Matthew Lintz and Charlie Rowe.  All of these kids look very young.  It could be that I am just getting old though…

Overall, I am very excited to see where Kevin Feige takes Spider-Man. I think this news really puts Spider-Man firmly in Marvel’s hands rather than Sony’s, which is only good for the movie franchise. Hopefully we get some casting news soon, as Captain America: Civil War is not that far away!