Sony planning animated Spider-Man movie with Lego team

You know what I was thinking the other day? I wish there were more movies about superheroes. It would be nice to go to the theater and see a well-done superhero movie with decent special effects that took the characters seriously, wouldn’t it?

Well, Sony heard my plea! And they’re going to make an animated Spider-Man movie that will come out on July 20, 2018. This news was announced at Cinema-Con, the theater owners trade show now going on. (Sony has been making a lot of announcements of late and I understand that may be partly because of the leaked memos up on Wikileaks which have revealed the planning for all this stuff.) Whatever the reason, three years out is still a pretty good time frame esp. for animation.

Luckily, we may see Spidey before that, I hear. Word on the street is that Spider-Man may appear in a Marvel movie! Wow. *I HEARD* he’ll first appear in Captain America: Civil War, which comes out in May 6, 2016. He may also pop up in Avengers: Infinity War. This will be a young teen-aged Spidey who is not Miles Morales. And then he gets his OWN live action movie from Sony on July 28, 2017. That’s a lot of Spidey. Torsten has a lot of work to do to update his chart.

This Spidey cartoon will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who directed The Lego Movie. If it worked for a Lego Batman it will for work Spider-Man.

Spidey has been the subject of many cartoons in the past from his 1967 series on to the current Ultimate Spider-man. According to Wikipedia here’s the “official” list:

Spider-Man – 1967 animated series
The Electric Company – Spidey Super Stories
Spider-Man – 1981 animated series
Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends – 1981 animated series
Spider-Man – 1994 animated series
Spider-Man Unlimited – 1999 animated series
Spider-Man: The New Animated Series – 2003 animated series
The Spectacular Spider-Man – 2008 animated series
Ultimate Spider-Man – 2012 animated series
The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Maximum Overload
Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers

It is safe to say there is precedent for an animated Spider-Man. But never in a movie! Exciting! Get the popcorn popping.

Here’s the press release:

On July 20, 2018, Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, the directors of The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and 21 and 22 Jump Street, are taking Spider-Man back to his graphic roots with the first-of-its-kind animated Spider-Man feature, it was announced today at CinemaCon by Tom Rothman, chairman of the Sony Pictures Entertainment Motion Picture Group. The film will exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe, all of which are continuing.
 
Lord & Miller are masterminding the project, writing the treatment and producing the film.
 
As previously announced, Spider-Man will next appear in a live-action Marvel film from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe (MCU). Sony Pictures will thereafter release the next installment of its $4 billion Spider-Man franchise, on July 28, 2017, a live-action film being produced by Kevin Feige at Marvel and Amy Pascal, who oversaw the franchise launch for the studio 13 years ago.  The animated film from Lord & Miller, dated July 20, 2018, has Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Pascal also serving as producers.
 
Spider-Man, embraced all over the world, is the most successful franchise in the history of Sony Pictures, with the five films having taken in more than $4 billion worldwide.