Spider-Man is going back to his graphic roots. On Thursday, Sony announced a new animated feature for the Marvel superhero from “The Lego Movie” directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller.
The movie hits theaters July 20, 2018.
Lord and Miller, the filmmaking duo behind “22 Jump Street” and “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs,” will write the treatment and produce the Spider-Man movie.
Sony Pictures chairman Tom Rothman made the disclosure at CinemaCon in Las Vegas. Rothman said the film will “co-exist” with the live-action Spiderman universe, but the press release clarifies: “The film will exist independently of the projects in the live-action Spider-Man universe, all of which are continuing.”
Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and Amy Pascal are on board to produce the picture.
Rothman did not, however, reveal any news on the live-action “Spider-Man” from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe that will debut on July 28, 2017. Marvel’s Kevin Feige and Sony’s Pascal will produce that movie, which will feature the Peter Parker iteration of the web-slinger.
Stolen emails from Sony Pictures last December revealed that the studio previously tried and failed to recruit Lord and Miller to take over its animation division last summer. The emails revealed that Pascal and studio topper Michael Lynton were looking to “turn the studio around,” trying to court Lord and Miller to head a Pixar-style “brain trust” of filmmakers. The two met with Pascal last summer to discuss what that brain trust might look like.
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Lord, however, wrote in an email that “it’s too hard to do great work there” in regards to the Sony job.
Spidey will make his next film appearance in Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War,” which bows May 6, 2016.
