When Spider-Man: Homecoming was released in July, the star-studded film was praised for its cast’s diversity. With its 2018 animated installment, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the franchise continues to break ground by bringing to the screen Marvel Comics’s first Afro-Latino web-slinger, Miles Morales.
In a trailer for the forthcoming movie, slated to premiere in December 2018, Morales, a teenager of African-American and Puerto Rican descent, is seen visiting the grave of the original Spider-Man, Peter Parker, and practicing his swinging skills across New York City skyscrapers. But, in a twist, more than one Spider-Man shares the screen. In the final tease, Morales sits across from another identically garbed superhero and asks: “Wait, so how many of us are there?”
The Morales character — voiced by Shameik Moore, 22 (The Get Down), for the film — was first introduced by Marvel Comics in 2011. Creator Brian Michael Bendis spoke to the NY Daily News back in 2015 about the importance of an inclusive reboot: “Many kids of color who when they were playing superheroes with their friends, their friends wouldn’t let them be Batman or Superman because they don’t look like those heroes but they could be Spider-Man because anyone could be under that mask,” said Bendis. “But now it’s true. It’s meant a great deal to a great many people.”
According to Sony, the film is executive produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the creative minds behind The Lego Movie and the 21 Jump Street reboot. It’s also rumored that Oscar-winning Mahershala Ali will portray Morales’s uncle in the flick.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse will be the most multicultural to date. Previous Spider-Men include Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland.