"Producers Will Never Replace Peter Parker in 'Amazing Spider-Man' Franchise"

May 01, 2014 08:09:11 GMT

Avi Arad and Matthew Tolmach don't think passing the Spidey torch to another character in the comic books' expanded universe is a good idea.

Miles Morales ("Ultimate Spider-Man"), Ben Reilly (Scarlet Spider in "Clone Saga"), and Miguel O'Hara ("Spider-Man 2099") have no chance to appear in "The Amazing Spider-Man" movies as long as Avi Arad and Matthew Tolmach serve as producers. While Andrew Garfield previously said that he could see Morales replacing Peter Parker, both producers rule it out.

"The one thing you cannot do, when you have a phenomena that has stood the test of time, you have to be true to the real character inside - who is Peter Parker? What are the biggest effects on his life? Then you can draw in time, and you can consider today's world in many ways," Arad says. "But to have multiple ones... I don't know if you remember, but Marvel tried it. And it was almost the end of Spider-Man."

However, Tolmach says Parker could pass the torch to other comic Spidey when they are no longer overseeing the franchise. "As far as we're concerned. The guys who take it over after us... Who knows...," so he says as quoted by The Playlist.

The possibility of seeing other characters, other than Parker, donning Spidey suit was raised by Comic Book Resources in an interview with Garfield. The current Spider-Man depicter was especially asked about Morales, a Black Hispanic teen, who became a successor to Parker. Morales' introduction was applauded for making Spider-Man a racially diverse character.

"Miles Morales was a huge moment in this character's comic book life," Garfield said. "And I do believe that we can do that. It's something I'm really interested in figuring out; an eloquent way of coexisting, or passing on the torch. I don't have an answer, but I think it's actually a really important move. I think it's a really beautiful and important move."

"A hero is a hero, whether you're a man, woman, gay, lesbian, straight, black, white or red all over - it doesn't matter," he added.

One of the obvious ways to separate the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe-approved version of Spider-Man from the previous iterations would be to use the more recent Miles Morales version of the character from the comics rather than the obvious and classic Peter Parker take seen in the previous films.

At the time of the Marvel and Sony joint announcement which revealed that the webslinger would be sharing on screen time with the Avengers, Sony Pictures president Doug Belgrad specifically mentioned Peter Parker by name which seemed to be the end of the talk of Morales making it to the screen.

Today though, The Wrap's Jeff Sneider has some new information from his trusted sources on a recent episode of the Meet the Movie Press Podcast:

"This is not set in stone, guys, but I'm telling you right now: Spider-Man's not going to be white. I'm 95% sure. Spider-Man's going to be most likely black. But there's a chance he could also be latino. 95% sure: not white. I don't think it's going to be Peter Parker."

Earlier this month came casting rumors that Dylan O'Brien and Logan Lerman were the favorites to take on the Peter Parker role. If the new report is true, it would fit in line with Sony's statement they plan to do a much younger version of the hero as Morales was a very young half African-American and half Latino character in the comics.

Whomever is cast as the new Spider-Man is expected to make his first appearance in Marvel's "Captain America: Civil War" which starts shooting later this year.