Spider-Man Movie El Muerto Back In Development Without Bad Bunny

Highlights

Recent reports suggest that the previously announced El Muerto spin-off film, which cast Bad Bunny in the lead role, is still actively in development at Sony, despite Bad Bunny stepping away from the project.
The focus now is on script revisions to improve the project’s story, likely leading to a recasting and future release, although the original release date has been scrapped.
Sony may be returning to development to insulate El Muerto from potential overlaps with other projects and to improve the standalone nature of their Spider-Man spin-offs. The company is seemingly learning from past mistakes and aiming to put out compelling standalone work.

While Sony’s plans for its Spider-Man universe are currently murky, a recent report suggests that news concerning the El Muerto spin-off film’s demise was greatly exaggerated.

While Sony’s mainline Tom Holland-led Spider-Man movies were a part of the MCU, with Spider-Man 4 potentially starring Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, Sony still owns the film rights to Spider-Man and several related characters the company has plans for. While earlier reports suggested that the previously announced El Muerto spinoff film, which cast singer Bad Bunny in the lead role, had been canceled entirely, a more recent report now suggests otherwise.

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Per Variety, while Bad Bunny has indeed stepped away from the El Muerto Spider-Man spinoff due to conflicts with his music career and won’t take on the role anymore, the project is still actively in development at the company. Though it now lacks a lead, the current focus seems to be a swath of script revisions to tighten up the project’s story ahead of a likely recasting and future release. With the movie’s original release, which fell in January 2024, off the books, there’s no telling what the time frame for preproduction and filming will be if El Muerto still sees the light of day without the intended lead.

Another possible reason for the return to development could be insulating El Muerto from any other projects that could potentially overlap with the film, as the Sony-led franchise has not been able to replicate the success of the MCU or the mainline Spider-Man trilogy, with films like Morbius doing more damage than profit to the brand. Variety also reported on a prevalence of opinions that the connected universe model might not be worth it anymore over the value in contained narratives. With Madame Web tracking even worse than Morbius early on, the need to polish any tabled projects and remove any links to others is likely paramount on the minds of executives at the company.

In addition to matching El Muerto’s comic ethnicity, Bad Bunny was also a stellar pick for the role of the superpowered luchador because the singer has had some experience on the biggest platform available, having wrestled at the WWE’s iconic Wrestlemania event and even getting his own Bad Bunny special edition and playable character in WWE2K23. With his massive pre-existing fanbase, the casting was almost too convenient to come to fruition, a sentiment that has since been proven true. While the revisions to the El Muerto script can certainly be sorted out in due time, there’s no doubt that the best man for the lead role might have already flown the coup. The rigor of finding someone else to fill a role that was a done deal before El Muerto was announced might be one factor that could see the project scrapped altogether.

While there are probably other factors affecting why Sony’s Spider-Man spinoffs don’t work, the idea of the El Muerto film getting a more thorough development process might be a fair sign that the company is set to learn from past mistakes and put out compelling standalone work. For now, fans can rest assured that the project is still alive.

El Muerto is reportedly in development at Sony.

Spider-Man

Spider-Man is one of the biggest names in entertainment today. The superhero first appeared in the Marvel comic Amazing Fantasy #15 before becoming a leading figure in the Marvel comic book universe.Spider-Man has also featured in numerous films and video games, most notably Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man (2018) and Spider-Man: Miles Morales.