With racial discrimination becoming an intense issue in the US these days ahead of the upcoming presidential elections, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) will continue to highlight the diversity of its superheroes in its roster as well as the other main characters in its films.
As it is, only three Marvel superheroes are of color and they are the Iron Patriot, the Falcon and the Black Panther so MCU obviously has a lot of things to explore in the future as far as diversity is concerned.
But the Marvel movies per se are quite diverse as they mostly feature main characters of color including Nick Fury, played by Samuel L. Jackson, among many others.
The latest Marvel film currently showing on theaters “Doctor Strange” starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role also features Chiwetel Ejiofor as Karl Mondo. The movie also gave Benedict Wong’s character a more prominent role.
Reports have it that the next Marvel movie to hit theaters, which is going to be “Spider-Man: Homecoming” starring Tom Holland shall feature an actress of color for the role of Mary Jane to further emphasize Marvel Studios’ efforts in promoting diversity in its movies, notes Screen Crush.
Critics are actually saying that because of what Marvel and also DC are doing both on comics and on films, there would come a time when the future would see less of white superheroes and more diverse ones.
Much different from previous iterations
Speaking of “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” the movie will also look very different from the previous iterations because of its realistic high school setting.
The first two iterations of Spider-Man under Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield looked forced when they were acting as Peter Parker as a high school student because the actors were actually older. Tom Holland is 19 years old and he does look like a high school dude.
Holland will show the young Peter Parker in his high school days and Marvel Studios wants to make sure that his environment looks true to life.
Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently talked about his efforts to increase racial diversity in the MCU and how the depiction of Spider-Man’s school was a major part of that.
He explained that Marvel’s filmmaker Jon Watts came in and had pictures of real high schools, and they are as diverse as one could imagine. Feige went on to say that it was something that was important to Marvel, to set it apart from other Spider-Man films because they want something that would represent the world today.
A busy actor
Tom Holland has just completed filming “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and owing to his talent as an actor, he was included in the impressive cast of The Weinstein Company’s “The Current War,” directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.
The movie details the battle between George Westinghouse, played by Michael Shannon, and rival Thomas Edison, played by another Marvel star Benedict Cumberbatch, to create a sustainable electricity system and market it to the US, details Deadline.
Katherine Waterston will play the role of Westinghouse’s wife Marguerite Erskine, with Nicholas Hoult playing Nikola Tesla.
Tom Holland shall be playing Samuel Insull, Edison’s right-hand man. The movie takes place in the late 1880s and revolves around the two titans and their battle over the supply of electricity.
Edison championed the use of a direct current for electric power distribution over an alternating current, which was backed by Westinghouse Electric and a host of European companies.
Going back to “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” filming for the movie has already wrapped up and most of the rumors going around these days about the upcoming movie are focused on the supposedly huge appearance of another Marvel character in the film.
It could no longer be Tony Stark and Iron Man as Robert Downey Jr. has long been confirmed to play his part in “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and his relationship with Peter Parker has already been established in “Captain America: Civil War.”