Originally published April 13, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
We’ve been so pre-occupied with Tom Holland’s portrayal of the Peter Parker Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that its easy to forget there’s a separate, animated Spider-Man film set to come out from Sony.
Rather than focusing on the original Spider-Man, the animated film will centre its follow the Miles Morales incarnation of the web-slinger, and now The Hollywood Reporter has revealed the first two additions to the cast: The Get Down‘s Shameik Moore will voice Miles Morales and Ray Donovan‘s Liev Schreiber will voice the villain, whose identity is being kept under wraps.
Miles Morales was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli for Marvel’s Ultimate Universe, which was separate to the main 616 Universe that the majority of the Marvel comics take place in. After a formula and a spider used to recreate the accident that turned Peter Parker into Spider-Man is stolen by Miles’ uncle, the young man is bitten by the spider and gains nearly the same powers as Spider-Man, but wants nothing to do with superheroics. In the wake of Peter’s death in Ultimate Fallout, Miles decided to honour Peter’s legacy and became the new Ultimate Spider-Man.
Since his introduction, Miles has become a very popular character and is one of the most diverse superheroes in comics right now, being half-Black and half-Latino. After Marvel’s Secret Wars, Miles was moved to the new Marvel Universe where he has his own Spider-Man title and is also an Avenger.
The LEGO Movie‘s Phil Lord and Chris Miller are writing and producing the film while Bob Persichetti and Peter Ramsey will co-direct. The film is slated for a December 21, 2018 release date.
