A full month from now, Madame Web will probably be making its method into theaters. Like Venom and Morbius earlier than it, the movie is Sony’s bid at making a universe of interconnected Spider-Man motion pictures that don’t function the hero in query. And in one other universe, we’d have a type of motion pictures enjoying out in theaters this weekend.
In mid-2022, Sony curiously introduced it was engaged on a film for El Muerto that was set to launch on January 12, 2024. In the event you haven’t heard of him, don’t fear, he’s solely actually proven up in two points, each of which had been again in 2006 . Created by Peter David and Roger Cruz in the course of the former’s Pleasant Neighborhood Spider-Man run, the mantle belongs to 2 males: Juan-Carlos Sánchez and his father, Marcus Estrada de la García. Marcus skilled Juan-Carlos to turn out to be the subsequent El Muerto, wrestlers who wore mystical masks that give them superhuman energy and sturdiness. Through the closing a part of the check, the 2 are attacked by one other supernatural wrestler named El Dorado, who kills Marcus. Juan-Carlos spent the next ten years coaching to avenge his father and sought out Spider-Man so to beat the hero in a wrestling match and unmask him; the 2 later teamed up in opposition to El Dorado and despatched him fleeing.
El Muerto hasn’t been seen since, however Sony’s would-be film for him had an ace up its sleeve in Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny. The Puerto Rican rapper has been knowledgeable wrestler since 2021, and he was already beginning to department out into appearing with Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico and the then-upcoming motion flick Bullet Prepare. However Sony didn’t have something available for the movie past Ocasio’s inclusion, not even a lot as a title card or director hooked up. And over a full yr after the announcement, the studio pulled the movie from its release schedule totally, and it’s unclear asto what capability El Muerto presently exists.
It’s a bizarre sequence of occasions, however not totally irregular for Sony. Again in 2014, the studio introduced it was engaged on a Silver Sable/Black Cat film dubbed Silver & Black that had The Previous Guard’s Gina Prince-Blythewood available to direct. That venture was then seemingly scrapped to give attention to just Sable, and now it’s simply apparently full-on lifeless, ditto an Aunt Could film talked about within the notorious Sony email hack. Sony’s plans for its terribly-named universe of Spider-Man-adjacent media is in all places, and even with a Venom trilogy set to shut this yr and two completely different Spider-Man characters getting their very own TV exhibits, it stays unclear which of those will really, really occur.
The place would we be if the El Muerto had come out as supposed? It’s onerous to say; wrestling could be very common, and Unhealthy Bunny is a fairly good artist, however the character’s idea looks like a tough promote. Massive-budget wrestling motion pictures don’t actually get made lately, and wrestlers like Dwayne Johnson, John Cena, and Florence Pugh have taken extra natural swings into the superhero area. Extra importantly, Sony’s seemingly content material with its superhero movies feeling like they’re from twenty years in the past and simply doing regardless of the hell they need. However Morbius was a transparent indicator that fashion of filmmaking can solely go thus far, so possibly it’s for one of the best that Sony both benched El Muerto till it’s positive the movie’s able to step into the ring or advised it to hit the showers.
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