We now know who will usher in the Marvel Studios age of Spider-Man, and it’s none other than The Cabin in the Woods co-writer/director Drew Goddard. Latino Review reports that Goddard has been tapped to write and direct the Spider-Man reboot for Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, solidifying the first major piece of the puzzle for this new iteration of one of the most iconic superheroes of all time.

Goddard is not only an excellent choice for this job, but he’s also kind of an obvious one. He already has experience with both Sony and Marvel superhero properties, and has a friendly collaborative relationship with Joss Whedon going all the way back to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, with the two most recently working together on Cabin in the Woods. Goddard was previously attached to direct Sony’s The Sinister Six spinoff film. That movie was to serve as the follow-up to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but with Sony now opting to share the character of Spider-Man and come up with a new iteration following that sequel's disappointing performance, it appears that Sinister Six is being shelved for the time-being.

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Image via Lionsgate

And on the Marvel side of things, Goddard was the first person set to write, direct, and act as showrunner on the studio’s Daredevil Netflix series. After penning the first couple of episodes, he left that show to focus on Sinister Six, but clearly Marvel still wanted to work with him. And, honestly, while I'm sure Goddard didn't enjoy leaving Daredevil, things appear to have worked out pretty OK.

According to Latino Review’s report, there’s already a solid foundation for how Marvel and Sony (and now Goddard) plan on approaching Spider-Man. First off, they say there won’t be a new origin story; Spidey will be established from the beginning. The report also notes that the studios want to cast a young, new actor to play a High School-based Spider-Man, with the thought that he can grow into the role not unlike the actors in the Harry Potter series. Given Marvel’s penchant for signing actors to 8 or 9-picture contracts, this isn’t a huge shocker, and ensures that the new Spidey is in this thing for the long-haul.

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LR also says that “a major part of the first film will involve Spider-Man fighting Iron Man and then trying to pass the ‘audition’ to join the Avengers.” As we know from the comics, Spidey has a long history of trying to get on the Avengers team, so this also seems like a solid decision. Moreover, this first Spider-Man reboot will apparently involve the Sinister Six coming together, with the idea that there may be a spinoff movie down the road.

As we previously learned, Sony still owns the character of Spider-Man and plans on starting a new franchise, but he’ll be popping up in other MCU movies (the first of which will be Captain America: Civil War), and MCU characters might also pop up in the Spider-Man movies.

So this is a pretty massive development on the Spidey front, and I think it speaks to the fact that Marvel’s Kevin Feige has been wanting this character for a long time now, and he comes to the table with plenty of ideas about how to bring him into the Marvel fold. And with a July 28, 2017 release date looming, now the focus turns to casting

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Image via Sony Pictures