Bad Bunny’s Spider-Man movie has run into trouble
El Muerto, Bad Bunny's movie about a Spider-Man foe with a magical luchador's mask, has been bodyslammed off the Sony schedule
Aux News Spider-Man
It can be a little tricky to keep track of all the various Spider-Man movies that Sony is continuing to develop these days—including, and especially, the ones that don’t actually have any spidered men in them. (A.k.a. the “Venom-verse.” Or, as we like to think of it: Morbiustopia.) Now, just a few days after the studio released the trailer for its latest “What if a Spider-Man villain didn’t have any arachnid-related superheroes to battle?” movie, Kraven, it sounds like trouble has befallen yet another project in this odd little corner of the superhero ecosytem.
Specifically, Deadline reports that El Muerto, the anti-hero flick set to star rapper Bad Bunny, has been knocked off the Sony schedule. The film is centered on a relatively minor Spider-Man foe, real name Juan-Carlos Estrada Sánchez—a luchador with a magical wrestling mask who’s been cursed to unmask a hero to redeem his family name. (Comic books!) The film was announced last April, as Sony continues to try to leverage every single Marvel character it actually has the film rights to, no matter how minor.
Unfortunately, it sounds like a combination of factors—Bad Bunny’s touring schedule and the ongoing writers’ strike foremost among them—have short-circuited plans for the film. While El Muerto is still reportedly in development, it’s been knocked off the formal Sony schedule, meaning that we have no idea how long we’ll have to wait for a film in which Bad Bunny absolutely does not end up wrestling Spider-Man. (But hey, who knows, maybe Mrs. Chen from Venom will show up in the audience or something for this one, too.)
Meanwhile, several other Spidey-adjacent films are still in the works at the moment, including Kraven, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the titular hunter, and the Dakota Johnson-starring Madame Web.
24 Comments
“Bad News, Bunny”
They could just… not make the movie? The world didn’t need Morbius, it doesn’t need Kraven, and it certainly won’t, at any point, need this.
Remember when Morbius flopped hard and the internet made fun of it and then Sony thought that meant people actually did like it and put it back in the theater to flop again? Do you think the guy in charge of the PlayStation division lays down to bed after a terrible day and thinks “at least I don’t run the film division”.
Man, how many movies get to flop twice in the theaters? They were so close together it was basically all the first run. Whoever made the decision to re-release it deserves some kind of special Razzle or something.
They deserve candy or gum, not both.
Just… a truly ill-conceived project that was likely borne from a consultant’s “total available market” slide capturing Latino audiences + superhero movie-goers, pro wrestling fans + listeners of Bad Bunny pop-hop.
I’ve said it time and again at this point: Sony has a contract that gives them the film rights to one of the world’s most popular and recognizable comic heroes, maybe half a dozen associated characters that could conceivably carry their own mid-budget movie, and then hundreds upon hundreds of plot devices with names who are only notable when Spider-Man is talking to or punching them.And Sony looks at Disney/Marvel Studios’ success and they seethe. They’ve got the A+ lister of the Marvel catalog, yet Fiege & Co. managed to turn some characters that mainstream audiences only had a passing familiarity with into $29 Billion With a B. So it’s their turn! They’ll just make movies with these cartoon jamokes nobody’s heard of until people get worn down and buy tickets! That’s how this business operates now!(It’s also blatantly obvious that someone at Sony, after hearing that Marvel’s films were building towards The Avengers, realized that they had the rights to some kind of team called “The Sinister Six” and immediately decided that must basically be the exact same thing; fanboys go for the team-up movie, so we gotta get there at any cost. The Amazing Spider-Man movies tried to get there in a hurry by cramming in too many villains, they learned their lesson and are now taking the right tactic by giving the characters their own films, but completely ignoring the reality that nobody gives a damn about these characters or their crappy movies.)
buddy, the licence cost them like 10 million dollars 30+ years ago and has made them billions. they are not seething they are laughing. percentage-wise and compared to investment, they’ve probably made a lot more money on marvel movies than disney has.
lol i forgot about madame web. long live the sony-verse!
Sony: You know how we love shoving too many villains into Spider-Man movies? Well now we’re giving them each a movie of their own. Without Spider-Man.
Brilliant!
I don’t know this man’s music but he actually a decent wrestler for a musician and his scene in Bullet Train was entertaining. But I don’t think the world really needs a the obscurest of the obscure Spider-Man villains.
I doubt there’s even the first hints of a script here. This movie was 100% the result of a meeting between Bad Bunny and some Sony exec, followed by some intern googling “Latino Spider-Man villains” at 3 am.
They probably saw Bunny wrestling on WWE events, randomly found this character and said “that’ll do”.
There are several great Spider-Man adjacent Latinx characters, beginning (obv) with Miles Morales and on through Aña Corazón/Araña. I’d even be fine with handing Bad Bunny the live-action Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O’Hara) if Oscar Isaac isn’t around.
But I could not even begin to tell you who “El Muerto” is, or why Sony decided that of all things, the Latinx character they wanted to go with was, sigh, a luchador.
Turns out Sony execs are big El Santo (aka Samson) fans.
We have that in common.
If they can get the rights to Blue Demon I’m in.
Relatively minor? The guy appeared in two issues.
I tell you what, that Mrs Chen cameo got a pretty big response at my screening of ‘Across the Spider-Verse’.
Who dis homo bitch?
Paste Pot Pete is due for a movie! Justice for Paste Pot Pete!
Trouble like ‘We’ve just realized we’re trying to make a Spider-Man movie with no Spider-Mans and a lead character nobody’s ever heard of’ trouble?
Right here in River City!