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Miles Morales In ‘Spider-Man’ Animated Film In 2018?

By Stephen Jordan
Published on: 10:31 PST, May 27, 2016

Many Spider-Man fans were hoping to see Marvel Studios and Sony introduce the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man in Captain America: Civil War this summer, but instead Peter Parker made his MCU debut. Now, it’s being reported by Heroic Hollywood that Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s 2018 animated Spider-Man film will star Miles Morales, though this has not yet been officially confirmed by Sony.

Warning: Comics spoilers ahead!

Miles Morales is Black and Puerto Rican, or can also be described as Afro-Latino, and Umberto Gonzalez refers to the announcement as “culturally groundbreaking,” as he reveals what his sources tell him about the project.

“Miles Morales, according to my sources, will be the focus of the untitled animated Spider-Man feature coming in 2018 from Sony Pictures. According to my guys, and these bro’s are always on point, it’s going to be all about Miles Morales.”

A Miles Morales Spider-Man movie is sure to excite a whole heck of a lot of comic book fans, as well as younger audiences who are familiar with the character of Morales from the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. And once Marvel knew that they were going to kill Peter Parker off in the Ultimate Universe in the comic books, the idea of a Spider-Man being a different ethnicity sparked a lot of interest for those creating the comics.

“We knew that the death of the Ultimate Spider-Man/Peter Parker was coming,” Axel Alonso, Marvel’s editor-in-chief, told Comic Riffs in 2011. “The question quickly became: Who will be the person to fill those tights? We knew very quickly what had to be done. Having a character as iconic as Spider-Man, when he peels off that mask, having a new demographic be able to relate to him, we’re very excited about that.”

Phil Lord and Chris Miller (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie) will be writing the currently untitled Spider-Man animated feature as well as serve as producers, but it does not appear that the two will also be directing the film. Along with not having a director, the project should presumably start looking for a voice actor to portray Miles Morales very shortly — unless they’ve already chosen an actor and are keeping it under wraps.

Actor, comedian, writer, and rapper Donald Glover, who may be known to some hip-hop fans as Childish Gambino, provided the voice for Miles Morales in the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon series in 2015. That bit of casting was a sweet victory for many fans, considering there was an unofficial campaign to get Glover cast as Spider-Man in a live-action adaptation, which ultimately never happened. Comic writer Brian Michael Bendis, who created the character with artist Sara Pichelli, and Alonso drew inspiration for the character from Glover as well as President Barack Obama — just months before his 2008 election.

According to Sony Pictures Chairman Tom Rothman, who announced the project at CinemaCon in Vegas last year, the animated film will not tie to the Tom Holland Spider-Man movie, nor the current Marvel Cinematic Universe. “The film will exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe, all of which are continuing,” Rothman said. This does mean that the Miles Morales Spider-Man animated feature will exclusively be a Sony Pictures project and will have nothing to do with Marvel Studios or the MCU.

The character of Miles Morales made his first appearance in Ultimate Comics: Fallout #4, in August of 2011, after the death of Peter Parker. Though Morales was wearing the original Spider-Man outfit, he got the idea of changing it and creating his own look after he was told that it was in poor taste for him to be wearing Peter’s original suit.

The Untitled Animated Spider-Man with Miles Morales is going to be released in theaters on December 21, 2018.

[Image via Marvel Comics]

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