Part of me feels bad for John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. The two wrote the new Vacation movie (in theaters as we speak), and have spent the week trying to promote it to local and national media. Yet, all anyone wants to talk about is their next gig, writing the solo Spider-Man movie for Marvel. Pardon us, ever so slightly, for also jumping into the fray.
Daley and Goldstein opened up to Vulture about their approach to Spider-Man, repeating a number of talking points that many involved with the project have already said: Peter Parker will be in high school in this new movie; he’ll be a geeky outcast; we won’t have to endure the origin story again, etc. But when you combed through their Spidey speak looking for interesting nuggets, you realize how much work is going into connecting this Untitled Spider-Man movie to the pre-existing Marvel Cinematic Universe, which gives us extreme hope. For example, this weekend, they are going to visit with Marvel to see Tom Holland’s cameo from Captain America: Civil War. Said Goldstein:
We hear good things. We might even get to look at the Spidey suit, which is exciting."
However, in the same article, the screenwriting duo essentially shot down that detailed cast list that was circulating around the Web the other day, the one that discussed possible villains like Scorpion and The Vulture in John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s Spider-Man movie. Daley tells Vulture:
We've discussed certain characters, but nothing is certain yet, for sure."
The only thing that can be certain at this point is that Marvel will have a lot more input into the decisions being made on this Spider-Man movie now that they have partnered with Sony. And the Marvel brain trust likely is feeding Daley and Goldstein details that they want to see in the upcoming script. For example, on a Grantland podcast that – again – probably should have focused more on Vacation, the duo opened up about how getting his powers only helps Peter Parker (Tom Holland) feel like more of an outcast, and a loner. Daley described it this way:
He has one more secret that he has to sort of keep from the world, one more burden that he’s dealing with above all the other crap that he’s dealing with at school. So it’s gonna be fun, and we can relate to that Peter Parker character—we’re geeky guys that weren’t popular in school ourselves."
John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein have time to develop the new world of this classic character. They also will want the feedback of director Jon Watts, who was hired to shepherd this vision. (That’s a lot of Johns.) Marvel’s first Spider-Man movie won’t hit theaters until July 28, 2017, though we will see him in Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: Civil War next May.
