Last year, fans cheered when Marvel announced their agreement with Sony to share the big-screen version of Spider-Man, which allowed the Web Head to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We since learned that he will make his MCU debut in May's "Captain America: Civil War" before headlining his own solo adventure in 2017. After a few rumored titles never caught on, we may now finally know what the reboot is going to be called. Full disclosure: it's super obvious.
Yesterday's press release for the "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" cast update included mentions of several of marvel's upcoming films, including "Spider-Man" for July 7, 2017. To date, all of Marvel's press releases up to 2019's "Inhumans" have gone by official titles, with the Spider-Man project being the only one that hasn't received the same treatment. However, if this press release is accurate, then it appears as if Marvel is co-opting the 2002 title of the same name. Would Marvel really do that?
Sometimes, reboots reuse the same name for marketing purposes ("RoboCop," "Point Break," etc.). But superhero films have shied away from that trend in order to purposely distinguish themselves. For example, the 2008 Edward Norton-led Hulk movie was titled "The Incredible Hulk" as opposed to its 2003 predecessor "Hulk," which received underwhelming reviews. The same thing goes for 2013's "Man of Steel" trying to distance itself from the Christopher Reeve-era movies and even 2006's "Superman Returns."
This is the third Spider-Man we're getting in 15 years. One would think that Marvel would want to stand out a bit more from previous iterations with a splashy new title and not a retread of older work. Of course, it's more than possible that the studio is just using "Spider-Man" as a placeholder. In that case, forget everything I just said. But Marvel is usually more careful than that.
Whatever the movie ends up being titled, Tom Holland's Spider-Man will be headlining his own film in summer 2017, directed by Jon Watts and written by John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein.
