You know Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the geniuses 21 and 22 Jump Street? Well, they’re not big fans of taking the conventional path. As such, it should surprise absolutely no one that their next project is an animated Spider-Man movie. Because why not?
This rather surprising and awesome announcement was made by Sony Chairman Tom Rothman this evening at CinemaCon, the annual theater owner convention which is currently running in Las Vegas. For now, not many details have been made available, but in his announcement the executive mentioned that the development of the film will not impede the live-action Spider-Man movie that is currently in the works and due to hit theaters in 2017. This is despite the fact that the animated project is now set to hit theaters on July 20, 2018 – a little less than a year after the theatrical release of the production that Sony is currently teaming up with Marvel Studios to make.
Of course, this will be far from Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s first adventure in the world of animation. While the duo really broke out thanks to the success of both 21 and 22 Jump Street, their roots in animation actually go back way further. The filmmakers first got their start in the industry creating the cartoon series Clone High for MTV back in 2002, and they made their feature directorial debuts with the spectacular hit Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs in 2009. Of course, we also can’t forget that they were the masterminds behind last year’s The LEGO Movie, which many considered to be one of the best films of 2014 (including myself).
It will definitely be interesting to watch the development of this animated Spider-Man movie if not simply because it will be fascinating to watch the moves that it makes alongside with the 2017 live-action project that will be a part of the ever-growing Marvel Cinematic Universe. In particular, it will be interesting to see the different directions that the two projects go. Will they wind up using the same actor to both play Spider-Man and voice him in the animated movie, or will the studios keep the projects distinct by finding two different performers? Will they create drastically different versions of the characters and story, or will they wind up sharing similarities to create a certain amount of connectivity? These are big questions that we unfortunately don’t have any answers for yet.
At this stage, it’s not 100 percent clear if Phil Lord and Chris Miller are planning to actually direct the animated Spider-Man movie themselves, or if they are merely developing the project to hand off to another filmmaker/other filmmakers - but it’s exciting nonetheless. In the last few years, the duo have proven themselves as two of the most exciting creatives currently active in the industry, and we’re fascinated to see what they come up with.
