A little over a year ago, ripples of excitement were felt throughout the world of geekdom when Marvel announced their deal with Sony that allowed a new big screen version of Spider-Man to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Since then, we’ve learned that he’ll make his MCU debut in May’s Captain America: Civil War, and next year, he’ll lead a new solo movie. Now we may finally know what this reboot is going to be called, and the title is about as simple as it can get.
In today’s press release for the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 cast update, it mentions several of Marvel’s upcoming movies, including listing "Spider-Man" for July 7, 2017. Keep in mind all of Marvel’s releases up to 2019’s Inhumans have been officially titled, and the upcoming Spider-Man film is the only one that hasn’t been officially named. If this press release is accurate, then Marvel has decided to give it the same name as the 2002 Tobey Maguire-led movie, which brought the Web-Slinger to the big screen for the first time. That’s an odd move on Marvel’s part if this is finalized.
While not all reboots (be they sci-fi, fantasy or another genre) retitle themselves, superhero properties tend to go that route. For instance, the 2008 Edward Norton-led Hulk movie was called The Incredible Hulk to distinguish it from its 2003 predecessor, or how 2013’s Man of Steel didn’t just call itself Superman like the 1978 Christopher Reeve-led movie. For heroes getting their first shot at cinematic fame, they get to keep their titles simple. That’s why Iron Man was just called that rather than something like Invincible Iron Man. In Spider-Man’s case, this is his third reboot, so he’s definitely in need of a dazzling title. Granted, it will have been 15 years since the original Spider-Man movie came out, but you’d think they would have come up with something more catchy.
On the off-chance that the press release was only using "Spider-Man" as a placeholder, the Wall-Crawler has led many ongoing books over the decades that could be used instead. Even with Amazing Spider-Man having already been taking by the Andrew Garfield-led series, there are still plenty of options for an eye-catching title. Spectacular Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man and Avenging Spider-Man are the main ones that come to mind. (We didn’t add Superior Spider-Man because there’s no indication that Peter Parker’s mind will be taken over by Doctor Octopus in the MCU.) Spidey’s has a a lot of adjectives attached to him over the years, and one of them could easily be used for his solo kickoff two years from now.
Whatever the movie ends up being called, Tom Holland’s Spider-Man will go adventuring on his own in summer 2017, which is being directed by Jon Watts and written by John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein.
