Sony's animated Spider-Man movie announces first casting

Following in the footsteps of Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland, meet the fourth big-screen Spider-Man: Shameik Moore.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 21-year old star of ‘Dope’ and Netflix series ‘The Get-Down’ has landed the lead role in Sony’s as-yet untitled animated ‘Spider-Man’ movie. This will be the first Spidey movie to centre on Miles Morales, the new Spider-Man introduced by Marvel Comics in 2011, as opposed to the character’s original incarnation Peter Parker.

It has also been revealed that villain duties will be taken by Liev Schrieber, an actor with some experience with comic book bad guys, having portrayed Sabretooth in 2009’s ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ (a widely-lamented film in which Schrieber proved one of the key strengths). However, it has not yet been revealed which villain will battle the new Spidey in the film.

Written by the very in-demand Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (directors of ’21 Jump Street,’ ‘The Lego Movie’ and the in-production ‘Han Solo’ movie), this animated ‘Spider-Man’ film will be co-directed by Bob Persichetti (screenwriter of ‘The Little Prince’) and Peter Ramsey (‘Rise of the Guardians’).

Unlike the upcoming live-action movie ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming,’ this film will not be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is being produced by Sony alone. It’s one of a number of Spidey-centric films the studio have in the works independent of Marvel: ‘Venom’ is said to be next on their agenda, and there are reports of ‘Black Cat’ and ‘Silver Sable’ movies being in the works.

While this will be the first movie appearance of Miles Morales, the character has appeared in TV cartoon series ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ voiced by Donald Glover, who had long campaigned to play the role on film himself (although we imagine playing Lando Calrissian in the upcoming ‘Han Solo’ movie is ample consolation prize).

The film is scheduled to open in UK cinemas on 21 December 2018.

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