How to Un-Reboot Spider-Man

As I've written before, Sony's handling of Spider-Man is a colossal mess.  They made three successful films with director Sam Raimi, two of which are beloved by fans and all of which made a lot of money.  After the creatively-fatigued and poorly-received Spider-Man 3, Sony quickly rebooted the series so as to retain the rights to the character.  Although the two Amazing Spider-Man movies were well-acted, they are generally considered less-satisfying and certainly less financially successful than the Raimi movies.  They were bogged down in rehashing the Spider-Man origin, adding a lot of complicated backstory, and featured uninspired villains.  Sony was clearly intending to produce a lot of spin-offs from their franchise but with the box office underperformance of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Sony panicked and now will be c- producing a new series of Spider-Man movies with Marvel.

While this will be good from a creative perspective-Marvel certainly knows how to make superhero movies and Spider-Man will now join the Marvel Cinematic Universe-it also means that we are in for yet another reboot of Spider-Man.  This will be the third movie incarnation of the characters in fifteen years.  One of the failures of The Amazing Spider-Man was that it felt too soon and too samey.  This will be an even bigger problem with this new Spider-Man.

Certainly, this version of the character will have to start as an existing hero already active as Spider-Man.  There is no way audiences are going to want to sit through another origin story for Peter Parker, especially after it was such an inordinately large part of the last two movies.  But really, the new Spider-Man needs to boldly differentiate itself from previous versions of the character.  The way to do this is to move away from Peter Parker.

Like most superheroes, there have been a few different characters to call himself Spider Man over the years (or Spider-Woman for that matter).  Peter Parker is certainly the most iconic and we can say that he has been well-represented on screen at this point.  Recently, the character Miles Morales was created, in part as a response to African American actor Donald Glover's social media lobbying for the role.  Miles Morales is a black/Latino teen who took over the mantle of Spider-Man after the death of Peter Parker in the comics.  He's become a popular version of the character (he's even been voiced by Glover on one of the animated shows).

If Marvel and Sony are smart (and we know Marvel is) then this is the version of the Spider-Man they will put up on the screen.   With Mile Morales, you avoid a lot of the samey-ness that you get by having another Peter Parker onscreen with one of the predictable wan white kids playing him.  Miles Morales is Spider-Man but he's a different character and differentiates himself from previous versions of the character.  

I think that the best way to do this also involves a role for Peter Parker.  In a nod to the comics, the new Spider-Man movie should feature a torch-passing cameo from Peter Parker.  As good as Andrew Garfield was, I would love to see Toby Maguire reprise his role one last time as an middle aged Spider-Man. This would be a great nod to Sam Raimi's movies with which a whole generation of movie goers grew up.  It also un-reboots Spider-Man, acknowledging the fundamental mistake of the Amazing Spider-Man movies.  Again, having Toby Maguire return to pass the torch would build excitement for the movie and make this a true event.

More importantly, the world of superhero movies is notoriously lily-white and this is a real opportunity to put a major hero onscreen who also speaks to a more diverse generation of Americans. It would be a bold and remarkable choice that, most importantly, would build interest and excitement around the character which is something that Spider-Man has been sorely lacking for a long time and ultimately what doomed the most recent movies.