Recent rumors suggested that a teenaged version of Peter Parker will be appearing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the assumption at the time was that the character would be white, Kevin Feige has revealed that’s not necessarily the case.
While making press rounds for Avengers: Age of Ultron, the Marvel Studios head was asked by MTV whether Spider-Man could be something other than “a white kid that’s 15 or 16.” “Maybe,” he responded. “The field is very wide right now in terms of who we’re looking at within a certain age range.” So while the age of the character is set, the race doesn’t yet appear to be.
In the same chat, Feige also noted that there could be a place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the comic’s minority Spider-Man, Miles Morales, sometime in the future.
(Read: Here’s Your Next Spider-Man: 10 Amazing Candidates)
In a separate interview with Crave Online, Feige said that fans won’t have to sit through yet another retelling of Spidey’s origins. “In Spider-Man’s very specific case, where there have been two retellings of that origin in the last whatever it’s been – [thirteen] years – for us we are going to take it for granted that people know that, and the specifics,” Feige said. “It will not be an origin story. But, with great power comes great responsibility. It is inherent to who his character is. But we want to reveal it in different ways and spend much more time focusing on this young high school kid in the MCU dealing with his powers.”
Feige added with a laugh, “There is a young kid [already] running around New York City in a homemade version of the Spider-Man costume in the MCU, you just don’t know it yet.”
He also noted that the costume design for the character is already done. He said the suit “is different than any of the ones that have come before. And yet ours is classic Spidey, as I think you’ll see.”
During the MTV interview, Feige touched on most of other forthcoming projects in the Marvel universe. Perhaps most interestingly, he said that though Avengers: Infinity War is being presented as a two-parter, the films won’t actually see one continuous story. “I wouldn’t call it one story that’s cut in half,” he said. Watch the whole discussion, in which he also touches on Dr. Strange and Thor: Ragnarok, below.
