Sony has tapped Mexican director Jonás Cuarón to helm its upcoming Spider-Man-inspired superhero flick El Muerto. Cuarón co-wrote the 2013 science fiction film Gravity with his father Alfonso Cuarón, the latter of whom directed this seven-time Academy Award winner. Jonás Cuarón himself has directed the films Año uña, Desierto (which won the International Critics’ Award at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival), Z, and the upcoming Chupa.
El Muerto will mark the first time that a Latinx Marvel Superhero will headline their own movie, although this is part of Sony’s Spider-Verse and not Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Grammy-winning music star Bad Bunny (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio), who made his big screen debut in Sony’s recent hit Bullet Train will star after having pitched the studio on this film about a supernatural Mexican wrestler. It seems that the studio was so impressed with Bad Bunny’s performance as the assassin The Wolf in the David Leitch-helmed action flick, that it decided to move forward with the star headlining a feature film based on a fairly minor Spider-Man supporting character.
El Muerto joins Sony’s slate of Marvel-based pictures which includes Kraven the Hunter (releasing on October 6, 2023), Madame Web (February 16, 2024), and an unnamed third Venom picture. So far, Sony has had great success with the Venom films. However, its most recent entry, Morbius, was a commercial and critical bomb.
And of course, the Spider-Man flicks, made in conjunction with Disney/Marvel Studios are not set in the same universe. Although, they are tangentially connected through the concept of the Multiverse.
Garreth Dunnet-Alcocer will script El Muerto, having already penned the screenplay for another Mexican-American superhero, Warner Bros./DC’s Blue Beetle.
In the comics, El Muerto is a luchador that almost defeated Spider-Man during a charity wrestling event. Using his mystical mask, which grants him super strength, El Muerto then teamed up with the wall-crawler to defeat the villain El Dorado.
El Muerto already has a release date of January 12, 2024. Are you excited to see Bad Bunny as a superhero?
