At Sony’s CinemaCon presentation yesterday, Sony Pictures Entertainment chairman Tom Rothman made a number of big announcements. Most of them (like production moving forward on Venom 3 and another Ghostbusters sequel) were expected. But the news that received arguably the most fanfare also left us scratching our heads a bit.
According to The Hollywood Reporter’s coverage of the event, Rothman announced a new film in their Spider-Man universe featuring El Muerto, a character who appeared in a grand total of two Spider-Man comics back in 2006.
The movie will star rapper/producer/pro wrestler Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, who joined Rothman on stage to share his excitement about the project.
“File:Bad Bunny 2019 by Glenn Francis.jpg” by Toglenn is marked with CC BY-SA 4.0.
Look, I’m old, but I’ve at least heard of Bad Bunny. As far as El Muerto is concerned, I own the comics he showed up in and his name still didn’t ring a bell.
The story he’s in is about a pro wrestler named Juan-Carlos Sanchez (El Muerto), who’s forced to fight and unmask a hero as part of some ancient ritual he doesn’t want to take part in. Spider-Man ends up almost killing him accidentally before saving his life.
I’m all about obscure characters, but it’s hard to see where the appeal for this one is — especially tying him to Spider-Man. Based on how Morbius turned out, pushing minor Spider-Man characters into the spotlight via tenous narrative threads doesn’t seem to be a winning formula.
Hopefully, Sony tries to make this intriguing character’s story into something more original without shoehorning in a bunch of MCU mythology to help with the marketing push.
El Muerto is tentatively scheduled to hit theaters on January 24, 2024.
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