Miles Morales will be the “star” of Sony’s upcoming Spider-Man animated movie. That’s the official confirmed news from Sony's just-concluded animation presentation, a morning that also saw footage from The Emoji Movie and the next Smurfs movie (there are a lot more female Smurfs this time around). The big news is that, as hoped/rumored, Mr. Morales will be taking flight on the big screen as the would-be webslinger over Christmas weekend 2018 when the Bob Persichetti/Peter Ramsey-directed and Phil Lord/Chris Miller-executive produced animated adventure debuts. And it’s terrific news for several reasons.
As you may know, Miles Morales was created by writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Sara Pichelli as a would-be replacement for Peter Parker in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book series. The “Ultimate” line was created in 2000 as a way for Marvel to reinvent their flagship characters for modern times and modern readers without ditching the ongoing continuity of the “regular” books. That version of Peter Parker was killed off in 2011 and Miles, a young man who had recently suffered a similar “bitten by an enhanced spider” accident, eventually became Spider-Man to honor the fallen hero.
After the “Ultimate” comic continuity ended in 2015, the character joined the official 616 Marvel universe with Miles being New York’s official Spider-Man and Peter Parker fighting crime around the world. And the character has made several appearances in the ongoing Ultimate Spider-Man Disney XD animated series. His first such appearance was voiced by Donald Glover, fitting since the character was partially inspired by Glover’s unsuccessful attempts to audition for The Amazing Spider-Man back in 2010, which was something of a flashpoint moment in raising awareness of onscreen diversity problems for blockbuster casting (he plays a supporting role in Spider-Man: Homecoming).
Yes, for the record, one of the things that made Miles Morales stand out back in 2011 was the fact that he was half-black/half-Hispanic. And thus one of the things that will make this animated Spider-Man movie stand out is that it will star a young hero who is half-black and half-Hispanic. You don’t need me to explain the whole “representation matters” thing. Using Miles Morales for the animated offshoot is a terrific and easy way to make it matter alongside the live-action counterpart. It is also a great/easy way to differentiate this new movie from the previous live-action movies and from the many previous Spider-Man animated television shows.
The film is scheduled for release on Dec. 21, 2018, meaning it will hope to follow in the (relative) footsteps of Illumination and Universal/Comcast Corp.’s Sing in terms of a big animated film breaking out on Christmas weekend. It presumably does not want to follow in the footsteps of Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc.’s Batman: Mask of the Phantasm which opened on Christmas Day in 1993 and made just $5.7 million total (my friend and I were the only ones in that theater on Christmas morning). It will open after the Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines and (in theory) James Cameron’s Avatar 2.
The film has yet to be titled and all we saw at the presentation was a thirty-second sizzle reel, which looked incredible stylized and resembled a cross between an Alex Ross image and a psychedelic cover image. Most importantly, this means that 2018 will offer another comic book superhero movie featuring a hero of color, during the same year as Marvel’s Black Panther. A Miles Morales animated Spider-Man movie means that there is a darn good reason, artistically and culturally, for Sony to be making an animated Spider-Man movie in the first place.
I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for nearly 30 years. I have extensively written about all
…I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for nearly 30 years. I have extensively written about all of said subjects for the last 11 years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing scholarship have included The Huffington Post, Salon, and Film Threat. Follow me at @ScottMendelson and "like" The Ticket Booth on Facebook.