Now that a new Spider-Man franchise is in the works, the next obvious question is: Who will play the Wall Crawler? Spider Man and Peter Parker are massive roles to fill, and as such, will be on the top of Marvel’s casting to-do list.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Spider Man will likely first appear in the Marvel produced Captain America: Civil War. The superhero then returns to Sony for the next installment in its $4 billion franchise, due out in 2017.
The Hollywood Reporter also says that actor Andrew Garfield is not expected to reprise the character he played in 2012’s The Amazing Spider Man and its 2014 sequel. This means that audiences can expect to see their third Spider-Man actor since the Sony franchise kicked off in 2002.
But the Sony-Marvel deal also means that moviegoers can savor the tantalizing possibility that other Marvel characters — which include Thor, Iron Man and the Hulk — will be able to pollinate future films. Spider Man was a Marvel Comics creation, but the company licensed the character to Sony Pictures’ subsidiary Columbia in 1999.