Another reason to get excited about Spider-Man: Homecoming — not only is Spider-Man himself gonna be awesome, but Marvel is surrounding Tom Holland with a diverse cast of characters.
Spider-Man: Homecoming takes Peter Parker back to High School, in second reboot of the Spider-Man movie franchise.
Tom Holland plays the titular webslinger, and if his reception in Captain America: Civil War is anything to go by, he’s gonna be a hit with fans who are excited to see the character ‘come home’ to Marvel.
However, the movie is also in the middle of Marvel’s increasing struggle to defend itself from claims that its cinematic universe is not diverse enough. It’s a topic we’ve brought up several times on Hypable, most recently in relation to Doctor Strange‘s Ancient One casting controversy.
But at last, it seems Marvel boss Kevin Feige is willing to make some actual strides to improve the MCU’s overwhelming CIS-whiteness, and not just in its upcoming Black Panther and Captain Marvel movies.
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In an interview with Vulture, Feige explained that while he believes the existing MCU movies have “as inclusive a group of characters as one could want” (although that’s debatable), the company is going to make more of a pointed effort with future projects, specifically Spider-Man.
“For us, it’s important that we don’t feel like a completely white, European cast,” says Feige, adding, “[Spider-Man director Jon Watts] came in and had pictures of real high schools, and they are as diverse as you could imagine. That was something that was important to us, to set it apart from other Spidey films that have been made — to carve that niche — and to have it represent the world today.”
“It’s definitely important to us that these movies reflect the world,” he concludes, which we hope will one day include main characters who are both female and POC (without having to be love interests), LGBT+ characters, and all other minorities that are not currently represented in the MCU.
Homecoming‘s cast includes Zendaya (who’s reportedly playing Mary-Jane), Donald Glover, Laura Harrier and Kenneth Choi.