Sony Pictures is due to showcase some of its upcoming films later today as part of CinemaCon—a kind of Comic-Con for theater owners—and we may or may not get some official news on the new Spider-Man reboot at the time. But for now, a new rumor has surfaced regarding a villain that may appear in the film, marking a pretty significant piece of information if indeed true.

Per Devin Faraci over at Birth.Movies.Death., the comics villain Vulture will appear in the Spider-Man reboot, which Devin also says is definitely going under the working title Spider-Man: Homecoming, which we caught wind of last week. It’s unclear if Vulture is the villain or is simply a supporting character—possibly even just in the opening scene since this reboot is foregoing the origin story—but according to this report Vulture will indeed be part of this new standalone film, which is a collaborative effort between Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios.


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Image via Marvel Comics

Also known as Adrian Toomes, the comics history of the villainous Vulture involves a jilted electronics engineer who creates a flight harness that gives him superhuman strength and the ability to fly. Toomes is an older villain in terms of age, and would mark a nice foil to 19-year-old Tom Holland’s Peter Parker as part of the film no matter his specific capacity. His ability to fly also provides director Jon Watts with some serious set piece potential.

Vulture actually has a curious history with the Spider-Man movie franchise, as director Sam Raimi intended to use the villain for Spider-Man 4 with John Malkovich in the role. Raimi was keen on making up for the semi-disaster that was Spider-Man 3 with a more focused and filmmaker-driven sequel, but he and the studio didn’t see eye to eye and producer Avi Arad was reportedly not so hot on Vulture, so the film ended up falling apart. Within hours, Sony had announced The Amazing Spider-Man, and Vulture has yet to be used onscreen—until Homecoming, that is.

As Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige recently told us, Marvel are acting as the “creative producers” on the standalone Spider-Man reboot, so the decision to include Vulture no doubt comes from screenwriters John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein under the guidance of Marvel. It’s a smart move to go with a villain we haven’t seen before, and I’ll be curious to see what other baddies the film surrounds Peter Parker with.


What do you think folks? Which villains besides Vulture should Marvel include in Spider-Man: Homecoming? Sound off in the comments below. The film is set for release on July 7, 2017.

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Image via Marvel Comics
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Image via Marvel