Marvel Confirms Teenage Peter Parker/Spider-Man and No Origin Story
It’s been rumored for a couple of months that the next onscreen iteration of Spider-Man will be a teenage version of Peter Parker. That rumor is now confirmed to be 100% true. During an interview with Collider, Marvel President Kevin Feige said that they are looking to cast someone around the age of 15-16 years old and explained that he wants to take advantage of Parker’s high school life to tell some Spider-Man stories that haven’t been told on the big screen yet. Here’s the quote:
“In terms of the age of an actor we’ll eventually to cast, I don’t know. In terms of the age of what we believe Peter Parker is, I’d say 15-16 is right… [S]ome of my favorite Spider-Man arcs and Spider-Man stories, he’s in high school for a lot of it. We want to explore that. That also makes him very, very different from any of our other characters in the MCU, which is something else we want to explore: how unique he is when now put against all these other characters.”
There were early rumors of a seasoned Spider-Man being introduced into the Marvel cinematic universe, which is an idea that I liked. We’ve seen the origin story of Spider-Man twice already. Thankfully, they will skip that part of the story moving forward. Obviously, Marvel has some fun ideas to play with for the character, and I trust that they’ll deliver something fans will be happy with. In an interview with Crave Online Feige explained,
“There is a young kid [already] running around New York City in a homemade version of the Spider-Man costume in the MCU. You just don’t know it yet… In Spider-Man’s very specific case, where there have been two retellings of that origin in the last whatever it’s been – [thirteen] years – for us we are going to take it for granted that people know that, and the specifics.”
In regards the the costume he added,
“We’ve already designed the costume, which is different than any of the ones that have come before. And yet ours is classic Spidey, as I think you’ll see.”
Peter was only in high school for the first 28 issues of the original The Amazing Spider-Man comic, but Brian Michael Bendis’s Ultimate Spider-Man was completely set during the characters high school days. I imagine they’ll be using that as their inspiration.
They have yet to officially announce an actor for the role, but it’s expected to come soon. He will be introduced into the MCU in Anthony and Joe Russo’s upcoming Captain America: Civil War, which is set for release on May 6th, 2016. He’ll then get his own solo film, written and directed by Drew Goddard. That film is set for release on July 28th, 2017.