Sony dropped two Spider-Man bombs at CinemaCon yesterday. Among them, they thrilled fans by announcing the title for Sony and Marvel’s Peter Parker reboot: Spider-Man: Homecoming. Their second piece of good news was that the new animated film featuring the web-slinger is apparently going to be groundbreaking.
“It’s a vision of Spider-Man that will take your breath away. Conceptually and visually, it will break new ground for the superhero genre,” says Sony.
That statement, while audacious, is still somewhat vague. Groundbreaking could refer to an innovative new style of animation or a different direction from prior Spider-Man features. Of course, it could simply mean the Spider-Man animated feature will follow a different path from the live-action version.
In any case, our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler will definitely start from an excellent base. Slated for release in 2018, the feature will be written and produced by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the masterminds behind 21 and 22 Jump Street as well as Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and the ever-enjoyable The LEGO Movie. At this point, however, it’s unknown whether the pair is up for directing it – since they’ve already passed on the upcoming Men in Black/Jump Street crossover MIB 23.
Animated Spider-Man features have a long and celebrated history. Since his first cartoon outing in 1967, the popular web-slinger has maintained an animated presence in every decade. His most popular series remain the classic Electric Company featurettes, the 1981 series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends (featuring crime-fighting cohorts Iceman and Firestar), the 1994 cartoon series and 2008’s Spectacular Spider-Man.
For what it’s worth, Sony big-cheese Tom Rothman called the forthcoming animated series “fucking awesome” at last year’s CinemaCon, so it definitely seems like everyone’s excited about it.
The animated Spider-Man feature bears no connection to the live-action Spider-Man reboot or the MCU in general, and is currently scheduled for release on December 21st, 2018.
