It’s been awhile since the announcement that Marvel and Sony would join forces to reboot the Spider-Man character (again), and thanks to some new interviews with Marvel Studio President Kevin Feige, we know a bit more about the direction the new film will be taking.
For starters, Feige confirmed in an interview with Collider that the film would be centered around Peter Parker, and not Miles Morales as some rumors had indicated. “In terms of the age of an actor we’ll eventually cast, I don’t know,” said Feige. “In terms of the age of what we believe Peter Parker is, I’d say 15-16 is right.”
Feige also spoke at length about having a high-school aged superhero:
“We want to play with Spider-Man in the high school years because frankly there’ve been five Spider-Man films and the amazing thing about it is, even though there’ve been five Spider-Man films, 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 and doesn’t shut up, which is something we want to play with and we’re excited about.”
Feige also dropped the news that the reboot would not be an origin story, which should cause a collective sigh of relief from just about everyone. Here’s what he told Crave Online:
“In Spider-Man’s very specific case, where there have been two retellings of that origin in the last whatever it’s been – [thirteen]years – for us we are going to take it for granted that people know that, and the specifics.”
Feige went on to state emphatically “it will not be an origin story,” and even seemed to confirm that Spider-Man already exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe:
“There is a young kid [already]running around New York City in a homemade version of the Spider-Man costume in the MCU, you just don’t know it yet.”
Feige gave credit to the previous Spider-Man films getting some things right, but he also points out that there are plenty of things that we haven’t seen from a big-screen Spider-Man story:
“I think there are a lot of things they haven’t done, which is A) his interactions with other heroes in the universe, because that was not possible, and also exploring more the notion, as the comics did for many, many years, as Ultimate Spider-Man did for ten years, [of]a much younger version of Spider-Man than we’ve seen in the movies. [The previous films] get him in and out of high school really fast.
And also the notion that he is very, very funny and very, very witty when he’s in that costume, swinging around. Not as a standup comedian, obviously, but as almost his nervous energy, bothering the criminals with banter as much as with his powers. That’s something that I think we’re excited to explore.”
You can also expect the MCU version of Spider-Man to have a new look:
“We’ve already designed the costume, which is different than any of the ones that have come before. And yet ours is classic Spidey, as I think you’ll see.”
Marvel’s Spider-Man reboot is scheduled to hit theaters on July 28, 2017 – but don’t be too surprised if he pops up during Captain America: Civil War, which opens on May 6, 2016.
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