It’s been months since Captain America: Civil War. Like kids hooked on comic books or like adults hooked on a soap opera wondering what will happen next, many eagerly await the next installments from the MCU. What happens to Captain America and Iron Man? What’s new with the MCU? At least this summer, we got a little distracted by Independence Day: Resurgence, X-Men: Apocalypse, Star Trek Beyond, Suicide Squad, Ghostbusters and pretty soon, Godzilla: Resurgence. Marvel won’t be shaking up the theaters until November with Doctor Strange, but we’ll see some interesting action with a car-driving Ghost Rider in Agents of SHIELD pretty soon. The most interesting hero to come out of this is, of course, Spider-Man. As part of Phase 3, he’ll come out swinging (did that sound right?) July next year. Here are some updates regarding Spider-Man: Homecoming.
The Vulture is going to be the primary villain of the film. Yes, primary because The Tinkerer and Shocker (rumored to be played by Bokeem Woodbine) are also said to appear in the movie. Hasn’t Sony learned anything? Well, they have since Tinkerer and Shocker won’t be playing stand-out roles. Shocker will play as an opening villain, something to get the action started while Tinkerer plays a former Stark employee providing tech for the bad guys like Shocker and later on Vulture. Think of Tinkerer as a background villain like Arnim Zola.
Vulture will be played by Michael Keaton fresh from playing as a guy in a bird suit (Bird Man) comes back as a guy in another bird suit. Next, he might play DCEU’s version of Hawkman since he keeps playing people that fly (Batman). He plays a scientist/engineer at Stark Industries working with the Tinkerer on a suit based on Stark technology. Somehow he gets fired, depressed, and goes mad. As a result of the experiments, he develops health issues and requires the suit to live. He steals the suit and goes on a rampage, and it’s up to Spider-Man to stop him. Sound familiar? Kind of like how the Green Goblin developed in the first Spider-Man film. At least that’s how the rumor mill goes.
Next, it’s been known for a while that Tony Stark will appear in the film. Not as Iron Man but just as Tony Stark. The Sokovia Accords apparently keep him from suiting up but Spider-Man’s still-hidden street-level status so far excludes him from it, and Tony would like to keep it that way. Stark will play a mentor of sorts to Peter and possibly give him another upgrade. Tony Stark or Robert Downey Junior adds MCU star value to the film without taking away focus from Spidey.
To keep the stigma of The Amazing Spider-Man away from the film, Mary Jane returns as Peter Parker’s love interest instead of Gwen Stacy. Marvel makes another controversial casting decision here as Mary Jane will be played by actress Zendaya. Not white, but mixed race African American. Flak from casting a white female in the elderly male Asian comic book role of The Ancient One for Doctor Strange hasn’t stopped Marvel and Sony from making Mary Jane black. Although with a little work, it doesn’t seem obvious. At first, she was rumored to take the role of Liz Allan or an original character named Michelle until it was revealed the role of MJ was given to her. Fans aren’t in as much of an uproar as the casting of Michael B. Jordan for Johnny Storm. Casting a black person for traditional blonde hothead Johnny Storm was a shocking break from tradition plus there’s a lot of unnecessary work in explaining why Susan Storm is white. Zendaya’s mixed ethnicity helps a bit as long as she appears as a brown-skinned redhead. MJ’s family isn’t shown much in comics and cartoons anyway. And speaking of breaking tradition, Aunt May was played by the very attractive Marissa Tomei as a 40-something attractive cougar instead of an elderly lady. People actually became excited about that, this author included. Logically, Aunt May should be at that age since Peter is still a teenager around 16. Besides, at this point, people are invested so in Marvel’s overall saga like people are hooked to Game of Thrones.
Another rumor is that this film won’t be featuring the Daily Bugle as well as J. Jonah Jameson. It seems a shame as JJJ is an iconic character of the Spider-Man franchise. Fans are wishing that JK Simmons resume the role since he fits it to a T. Apparently, since the film will concentrate on Peter’s life as a high school student, looking for a job is not yet a major consideration, and there’s no reason to feature the Bugle just yet. The Bugle can appear as an Easter egg as a paper showing some headline which would mark the paper’s first appearance in the MCU. This time round, people are excited about a Spider-Man movie since he is officially part of the Marvel. That’s it for now, and there’s still room for more updates and changes since the film is still about a year away.