Michael Keaton swooped in and scavenged John Leguizamo’s role as the Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming
Negotiations with Keaton took so long that Sony lined up Leguizamo to play the winged villain before the Beetlejuice actor finally committed
Aux News John Leguizamo
Spider-Man: Homecoming was warmly welcomed to the Marvel Cinematic Universe upon its release in 2017, thanks to its refreshing, John Hughes-inspired take on the webhead. However, it could have looked very different, with John Leguizamo playing antagonist Adrian Toomes, also known as the Vulture, instead of Michael Keaton. Talks between the Dopesick actor and Sony had dragged on for so long that the studio secured another star.
“We had negotiated and I was about to play him, and they said that Michael Keaton wanted it back and they asked me if I would give it up,” Leguizamo tells ComicBook. “I said, ‘Well, okay I guess.’ They said, ‘No, we’ll work with you again, we’re gonna…’ That’s what happened there.”
Keaton went on to briefly reprise the role in Morbius, seemingly setting up a fresh assemblage of bad guys in Sony’s universe of Marvel characters following the multiverse shenanigans of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Meanwhile, Leguizamo hasn’t made his promised other appearance.
“They offered me something tiny,” the The Menu actor added. “I went, ‘Nuh uh.’ That behind the scenes, I’ve never talked about that.”
If Leguizamo is still looking for a meatier role menacing Peter Parker or any of his arachnid-powered pals, there should be plenty of other opportunities coming up. Sony has been building out a line-up of live-action films focused on Spider-Man villains, starting with two Venom movies and Morbius, soon to be joined by Venom 3, Kraven The Hunter, and a Hypno-Hustler project. Madame Web is set to hit theaters this fall, Olivia Wilde is still rumored to be directing a Spider-Woman movie, and TV shows following Silk and Spider-Man Noir have been confirmed. There’s also more Spider-Verse in the works, and Leguizamo has an accomplished voice acting résumé that includes the Ice Age series, Encanto, and Fairfax. He has also gotten to play a comic book villain as the voice of the Riddler in Batman: The Audio Adventures.
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“Michael Keaton swooped in and scavenged John Leguizamo’s role as the Vulture in Spider-Man: HomecomingNegotiations with Keaton took so long that Sony lined up Leguizamo to play the winged villain before the Beetlejuice actor finally committed”
So, which is it? Did Michael Keaton swoop in and take Leguizamo’s role or was Leguizamo almost given the role because Keaton almost didn’t take it?
Jesus fucking christ, why can’t you fucking read?
Does John Laguizamo do anything other than complain about roles he didn’t get?
lol they asked him if he would give it to Michael Keaton, how kind of Laguizamo to give them permission to offer the job to Keaton pffft. He should put all of these credits he almost had on an imaginary resume.
Doesn’t sound like “complaining” to me.
Dude, what?
You should fuck off.
You’re a dick.
I’ve only heard him “complain” this one time, for which I can hardly blame him.The rest of the time he’s “complaining” it’s about incompetent directors (SUPER MARIO BROTHERS, and he’s hardly the only one!), self-centered “movie stars” (Steven Seagal), or telling anecdotes about his experiences that are meant to be comic or at least engaging.
John Leguizamo is a legend and Marvel would be lucky to have him in a movie.Decades ago on a talk show, John told a story about being in a movie where an A-list-at-the-time celebrity was written to die in the first third of the movie to up the stakes and shock the audience. The A-lister was the type of guy that rarely died on screen… sort of like John Wayne. Leguizamo’s character was going to take over command after this scene, so John was excited for the role. Sure enough, the day of filming the death scene, the A-lister started getting cold feet. “I don’t know if it makes sense for my character to die here. Maybe he should live and I’ll be in the rest of the movie.”Sick of this guy’s attitude, the director said, “Listen, either you film this death scene or we get some other $20 million-a-movie a**hole and we’ll throw HIM out the plane instead.”That movie was clearly “Executive Decision” and the ‘A-lister’ was Steven Seagal. I say A-lister because that’s what John called him at the time.
Best part of the movie IMO at 3:30
“I played his [Seagal’s] righthand man and he knocked me out in rehearsals”“Oh wow. By accident?”“Oh no no no. On purpose.”
I remember everyone being very surprised that Seagal bought it so early in that film.Of course, back then his slow mo martial arts technique was a lot cooler looking…or at least we thought it was.
Yep, Steven Seagal had a run of roughly 5 years were he was definitely an A list action guy, the Under Siege movies and Hard to Kill cemented him as an action star, but it wasn’t long after Executive Decision that they started pairing him with rappers in movies and he started doing straight to home video stuff.
I almost never like him much in anything I see him in. His humor just doesn’t work for me, or maybe it’s the wrong role in the wrong film or the wrong director or something. But I’ll be damned if the man isn’t talented. His Netflix special is a tour-de-force. “Legend” is apt. I just wish Hollywood could figure out what to do with him.
I’m old enough to remember that film and being surprised that Seagal was out so quickly.
That’s hilarious about Seagal. Leguizamo has already proven the lengths he’s willing to go for a superhero villain role, with a pretty brutal makeup and physical transformation in his prime to play the clown in Spawn back in the 90s—people talk about Colin Farrell being unrecognizable as Penguin now, but Leguizamo did it first. Would have been a nice nod to those roots if he had played Vulture in Spiderman and Morbius (and maybe Venom 3?), since Spawn’s creator Todd McFarlane found much success in the comics of Spiderman, including Morbius storylines and helping create the Venom character.
No, you say A-lister because he was an A-list action movie star at the time.
“I just read the greatest screenplay ever written!”
Steven Seagal IS … Some $20 Million-A-Movie Asshole.
Well he WAS . . .
Stil think the twist with Toomes is magnificent. It’s a genuine rug pull for the audience that you don’t tend to get in Marvel movies. And it’s works perfectly on a thematic level too.
I still remember being legitimately shocked when he answers the door. I think I had even seen cast lists that mentioned Laura Herrier’s character having the last name “Toomes” but it still caught me by surprise.
I genuinely thought “Holy shit, has the Vulture tracked down Peter and taken his girlfriend hostage?” for a second before I twigged. Keaton had built up Vulture as such a threat that I couldn’t see him as a normal guy.
Yeah it’s surprisingly well done.
The car scene in particular is fantastic.
Yeah it helps that Keaton is a good actor, Birdman is amazing in large part because of him.
Birdman is watchable entirely because of him.
Best scene in the whole movie. I’ve gone on here about it before, but I love it: You can see Liz inadvertently giving her Dad all the information he needs to figure out who Peter really is; you can see Toomes figuring it out in real time as she talks and he looks at them in the rearview mirror; and you can see Peter realizing that HE’S realizing… by the time they get to the dance and Liz gets out of the car so that Dad and date, hero and villain can have their “man to man” chat, the tension is through the roof. Love it.
Everything about it is so great. Just a wonderful payoff to the gut-punch of Peter’s nervous excitement being dashed when Toomes opens the door.
One of the interesting things about Spider-Man is he’s a kid (in most versions) going up against these dangerous criminals who will definitely kill him without a qualm, perhaps because they don’t know he’s a kid. The car scene is chilling because there’s a grown man with a family of his own telling this teenager, in as many words, that he will totally kill him if he has to. It ups the stakes and the danger in a way that a lot of superhero films don’t achieve.
The moments when the movies fuck with the comic-book audience are my favorite. Like, that’s Liz Allen, right? — No.
John Leguizamo should have been Morbius. Would have been better than Jared Leto.
Heath Ledger’s rotting corpse would have been better than Jared Leto.
Just taking CGI Tarkin from Rogue One and using him without any modifications of his dialogue would have been better than Leto.
Given Ledger’s rotting corpse won an Oscar for the part?You better believe it!
Uh…comicghostrider would be better than Jared Leto as Morbius!
Leguizamo played Cholo beautifully in Land of the Dead, a role originally meant for Tom Savini.
You forgot his major part in Spawn.
If Leguizamo is still looking for a meatier role menacing Don’t forget, he’s already played a villain in a comic book movie.
Leguizamo should hold out for the Razorback role. If they are going to do Hypno-Hustler, surely they will do a Razorback movie.
They also considered going in this direction:
“So you can deal with Vultures…Like Me.”
When Spider-Man 4 with Raimi was still realitistic and John Malkoviches name was being thrown around for Vulture did Laguizamo delusionally believe the role was his then too? (your local Latino born Italian over here).
Maybe in your imagination he was…?
It wasn’t Leguizamo’s role at all. Keaton was the first choice. And Leguizamo was the backup. And they didn’t need the backup. Keaton did no swooping nor scavenging, regardless of how fun it is to use those words in this story because of them being things that vultures are known for.