Donald Glover has joined the cast of the next Spider-Man movie, “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” which Jon Watts is attached to direct, with Tom Holland starring, for Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios.
Who Glover is playing has been kept underwraps for now. So let the speculation begin.
Remember the “Donald Glover for Spider-Man” campaign that inspired all kinds of fanboy outrage in late 2010?
Glover fans demanded that he be considered for the part, and even created a “Donald Glover for Spider-Man” Facebook fanpage.
Glover eventually addressed the kerfuffle, stating that it really all started as a joke – a joke that got very serious – and he never meant to stir things up.
And I’m sure to the happiness of Spidey fanboys all over the world, Glover wasn’t cast as Spider-Man after all.
Although, 2 years later, in 2012, Glover revealed that, actually, while he isn’t going to be playing Spider-Man on the big or small screens, he would feature in that universe somehow; however he wasn’t forthcoming with info on what exactly that meant.
Eventually, the rapper/actor gave voice to Miles Morales – the black Spidey, first unveiled in 2011 – during the 2014 season of Disney XD‘s animated series “Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors,” which featured both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, who meet in a parallel world, where they both exist.
In the episode, Morales is still getting used to being a superhero when he meets the dimension-hopping Peter Parker, who’s on the hunt for the Green Goblin, who’s busy trying to collect the DNA of various Spider-Men, for use in his evil deeds.
“He meets someone who is his hero, and that comes across completely in Donald’s performance,” says Stephen Wacker, vice president of Marvel Television‘s animation division. “He’s got a real warmth that suits the character really, really well.
“That’s the great part about the Spider-Man costume: He can be anybody,” Glover adds. “Spider-Man could be a girl. Spider-Man could be an old man. You don’t know. So I just tried to be as me as possible, because you’re always just going to bring it back to yourself when you watch the show.”
After that, some wondered whether this voice-casting would lead to a live-action casting of Glover as Morales in a film or TV adaptation of Spidey, with Miles at the center. Said Glover: “I still have hopes to do something like that one day. I don’t look at this as second place. Spider-Man, he’s such an icon — you have to do something with him.”
Alright Spidey experts, what role do you think Glover has signed up to play?
Glover will next be seen in his FX dramedy series, “Atlanta,” next TV season.
Deadline was first to report the news of Glover’s joining the “Homecoming” cast.
