In February, Marvel Studios gained back rights to use Spider-Man, one of the most recognizable superheroes in pop culture in its future films, as well as producing a solo film in 2017. Ever since being announced, casting has been the hot topic, with many actors such as Dylan O’Brian and Asa Butterfield being thrown around as frontrunners to play the web-slinger in Marvel Studios’ upcoming films.
Spider-Talk, thanks to Marvel Studios can say that Brian Jacob, who can be seen on Better Caul Saul, will be playing Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Marvel’s upcoming Captain America: Civil War, before playing the character again in his solo 2017 film, titled The Spectacular Spider-Man.
“We’re very excited to have Brian join our growing stable of actors. We always want to collaborate with the best and most creative actors to help grow our franchises and develop our characters, and Brian’s take on Peter Parker and Spider-Man has us really excited on where the character will go,” said Marvel Studios’ President Kevin Feigee. Spider-Man will first be seen in Captain America: Civil War, which is based on Mark Millar’s best selling story of the same name, which sees Captain America pitted against his friend, Iron Man as a Superhero Registration Act is put in place. It’s notable to mention that this was the story that outed Spider-Man’s secret identity to the world.
Marvel had originally wanted to buy back Spider-Man from Sony but its resulting partnership, which was in the works since October, is just that — an arrangement that enables both Sony and Marvel to mutually benefit at the box office by having Spider-Man appear in their movies.
The deal actually benefits both sides significantly.
Sony needed to breathe life into its Spider-Man franchise; by lending its character to Marvel, it has a way to generate more exposure for its bigscreen hero. Doing so also creates some serious goodwill among Spider-Man fans, who have wanted to see the character become part of the Avengers.
Marvel now gets access to one of the comicbook company’s most popular characters — it already controlled the rights for TV, merchandise and other platforms, but the holy grail for Disney has lately been film, where it has been able to launch franchises that impact the bottom line of all of its various divisions.
Character crossovers across studio films are virtually unheard of and have been considered too cost prohibitive in the past. They’re so rare that Marvel and Fox cast different actors to play Quicksilver in Avengers: Age of Ultron and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
But with Sony looking for a creative way to stop losing money on its franchise , and Marvel so eager to get its hands on Spidey, Hollywood actually figured out a way to work together for once.
Brian Jacob has appeared in several blockbusters, including Elysium and Ghostbusters. The talent said he was excited to grow out his hair for the role.
We’ve covered the potential of diverse casting for Marvel’s The Spectacular Spider-Man before and are genuinely excited by this turn of events. We never foresaw a veteran actor stepping into the role.
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