Spider Man

The upcoming movie release calendar is like a table full of dominos; incredible expensive dominos that are each worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Once one shifts, they all start to move around.

Robert Downey, Jr. and Chris Evans appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live last week to debut the first Captain America: Civil War trailer. And, if the internet rumormongers are to be believed, they also did something else: revealed they would be making appearances in Marvel and Sony’s new Spider-Man movie.

Via a press release at Marvel.com, Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios have announced that they’ve found their next Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. It’s Tom Holland, the 19-year-old British actor best known as one of the stars of The Impossible. The studios also announced they’ve chosen a director to make the next Spider-Man movie, and it’s a surprising choice: Jon Watts, the director of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival selection Cop Car.

By now, everyone is familiar with the interconnectedness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how every film references what came before and what’s arriving next. So it makes sense that Ant-Man, the riskiest Marvel endeavor yet, will supposedly be filled with references to one of Marvel Studios’ surest things: the new Spider-Man. We guess the bug-themed superheroes have to stick together, huh?

We’re a little over a week away from the biggest movie of the summer, Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. In less than ten years, Marvel has built a powerful brand in Hollywood thanks to their great casting, sharp writing, and an ability to distill decades of comic books down to fun, accessible adventures. A big part of that translation process is the look of their movies, and particularly the look of their characters. And that’s all about costumes, which is a particular specialty of Marvel’s. Between Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and the rest, they’ve got some sharp-dressed heroes.

When Sony finally put a bullet in the dying (suffering!) Amazing Spider-Man series and agreed to team up with Marvel Studios to bring Spidey into the Marvel cinematic universe, the internet rejoiced for about two seconds. And then it got all grumpy and weird and slightly racist, but that’s just the internet for you. Well, get ready for everything to grumpier and weirder and slightly more racist because Marvel is supposedly deep in their search for the new Peter Parker right now and one of the names on their list has been revealed.

According to some reports (but not others), Sony has found the filmmaker to restart the Spider-Man franchise one more time, with The Sinister Six writer/director Drew Goddard swinging off of that project and onto a new Spider-Man franchise. But that still leaves the issue of who will play the new Peter Parker. Latino Review’s report on the Goddard rumor claimed they wanted a “new actor, probably an unknown” who’d start off in high school and grow with the part “a la Harry Potter.”

Last year, back when it still seemed possible that Sony may try to continue their Amazing Spider-Man reboot and before they teamed with Marvel to relaunch Spidey in a new film series that will connect with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, ScreenCrush Editor-in-Chief Mike Sampson and I put together a list of ten directors we thought could save the Spider-Man franchise. One name we both immediately thought belonged on the list was Drew Goddard, the man who directed The Cabin in the Woods and was then slated to direct the Amazing 2 spinoff The Sinister Six.

In news that will surely ignite all kinds of controversy, a new Spider-Man rumor has arrived on the internet suggesting that the new Peter Parker will not be played by a white guy. In fact, he could be played by (gasp!) a black or Latino actor! And, he might not even be Peter Parker!

Since the news that Spider-Man would be joining The Avengers in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we couldn't help but wonder what that was going to look like. It was a possibility that many movie fans had hoped for for years, but were told was never going to happen. We didn't even let our minds think of what could be. Now that it's actually going to happen, our minds are reeling. What will it look like to have Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye share the screen with Spider-Man? Well, you can get an idea with this awesome new Marvel movie mashup.

It was the news we’d all be hoping and wishing and waiting for: last night, Marvel officially announced that they’ve reached an agreement with Sony for a Spider-Man crossover, which could also allow for MCU characters to crossover into Spidey’s own films. On top of that, Marvel is teaming up with Sony for a new ‘Spider-Man’ movie, to hit theaters in 2017. But who will play the web-slinger? As predicted, it won’t be Andrew Garfield. We’ve got a little more info on Marvel and Sony’s plans, which shed even more optimistic light on this very positive (and super exciting!) news.

We spoke to Hugh Jackman earlier today for his upcoming movie ‘Chappie’ (we’ll have much more on that movie soon), and as we were making small talk, we asked Mr. Jackman whether he had heard the news yet about Marvel and Sony Pictures coming to terms on an agreement that would allow Spider-Man to crossover into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He had not. He was very surprised.