Sony Unveils Brand New 'Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse' Footage At CinemaCon - Plus, No Morbius Sequel, But Bad Bunny Reavealed As Marvel Villain 'El Muerto'
It was a big day for Sony at yesterday's CinemaCon panel on their upcoming projects. The cinematic giant had a lot to unveil, from new characters to new footage to new sequel announcements - or lack thereof.
The most exciting takeaway by far was the whopping fifteen minutes of initial footage of Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse that was shown. The studio may have just pushed the film back eight months, in order to, in their own words, have "more time to make it great."
But even still, they had the beginning of the film ready to go for everyone.
So what happens in the first fifteen minutes of Across the Spider-Verse?
Well, a lot, but we'll break down the important bits:
- We open in Gwen's universe, where her father is the police chief.
- A call that she tags along with him also introduces the famed Spider-Man villain Vulture (also recently portrayed by Michael Keaton in the MCU's Spider-Man: Homecoming.)
- We're introduced to two new characters: Spider-Woman, alias Jessica Drew, voiced by Issa Rae; and Miguel O'Hara, AKA Spider-Man 1099, whose appearance has been one of the biggest discussions among fans on Twitter today. The character will be voiced by Oscar Isaac of Moon Knight.
- We see Gwen reveal her secret identity to her father later, when he tries to arrest her for the murder of Spider-Man.
- Finally, we clip back to Miles Morales' universe, where we see him at a regular 'ol parent teacher conference.
Voice actors Shameik Moore and Hailee Steinfeld will also return as Miles and Gwen, respectively.
But, as we said, that's not nearly all that happened.
What Else Did Sony Announce At CinemaCon?
Of course, the animated Spider-verse isn't the only thing that Sony has going for them - they also announced that there is another addition to the Venom franchise on the way, as well as one for the Ghostbusters. There were no further details on either project, yet - just the fact that they're in development.
Sony did, however, have plenty of other exciting projects with a lot more detail to announce. The Woman King, a story about a group of "all female badass warriors" and "Real-life Amazons" that Viola Davis herself pitched to the studio. Star Wars' John Boyega, among others, will co-star with Davis.
Reese Witherspoon also made a virtual appearance to give an introduction to her film Where The Crawdads Sing, a story about an orphan girl who raised herself in the wilderness. It is slated to come out this summer, July 15, and critics seem to anticipate a hit.
There was also footage from George Tillman's upcoming George Foreman biopic, which the real George Foreman made a virtual appearance to endorse.
But the other big thing everyone is talking about is the 10+ minutes of footage from the new upcoming film Bullet Train - another Spider-man-related live-action film, this one casts Brad Pitt as the leader of a ragtag group of eclectic assassins that includes the likes of Sandra Bullock and Lady Gaga - according to director David Leitch, Pitt is "like you've never seen him before."
Brad Pitt, however, wasn't the actor everyone is focusing on, because this is how we found out that Sony had cast Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio - AKA musician Bad Bunny - in the role of El Muerto; and how we found out that they're giving him his own movie.
Wait, Who Is Bad Bunny?
If you're not aware of who Bad Bunny is, he's a Puerto Rican rapper best known for his collaborations with artists like Cardi B and Drake in the US, but also for popular spanish-language songs like "Callaíta" and "Ni Bien Ni Mal." He's also known for his fantastic showmanship - probably because he's also a professional actor and wrestler, on top of his music career.
The fact that he's a wrestler and actor are really what got Bad Bunny the part of El Muerto, who is himself themed after the famed Mexican wrestlers called Luchadores. He will be the first hispanic actor to get his own film in any Marvel Universe.
Wow - after all that, you may be asking, 'what DIDN'T they announce?' Well...
No Word Of Any Morbius Sequel
While there was a slew of announcements of exciting new projects and new casting choices, Sony was almost suspiciously silent about their recent box office flop, Morbius, starring Jared Leto.
The film, which gave us the backstory of vampiric villain Michael Morbius, was a sort of Jekyll and Hyde tale that was originally thought to be part of the setup to a much big, more interlocking Spider-Man universe.
This still may be true, but if it is, we're guessing Morbius won't factor in in as big a way as they may have been anticipating years ago when the film first began development. The fact that they announced El Muerto and showed footage of Bullet Train without so much as mentioning a Morbius sequel is probably a sign that they're planning to leave that particular character be for a while.
Still, it's not like they're lacking for other interesting stories to tell. Sony demonstrated at today's CinemaCon presentation that, while they may have made one or two missteps trying to get this universe off the ground, they're determined to make it work - and if you're not into that, they still have a ton of other material that you may like.
