Who Will Michael Keaton Play in ‘Spider-Man Homecoming?’
A few weeks back there were rumors going around that Oscar nominee Michael Keaton was in discussions for the main villain role in Marvel/Sony’s upcoming “Spider-man: Homecoming”.
It was an exciting prospect. Not just for the meta reason that it would mean the next Spider-man movie would basically be about Spider-man vs Batman. But beyond that Keaton is a fine actor and would certainly make a great match for the MCU. I was even planning to report on it, but when I began writing it the story changed to Keaton unfortunately dropping out. Normally that’d be the end of things but now something interesting has happened, Michael Keaton returned to the project and has signed with Marvel.
This is a rather rare occurrence, at least for it to be in the news. It does make this a rather interesting development. It is still not confirmed so who knows if this will end up coming to pass. We don’t even know any of the details of the falling out or what brought him back, but I’m reminded of a story told by Quentin Tarantino about hiring Michael Keaton for “Jackie Brown.” Apparently when Keaton met with him to discuss the role he spent the whole time telling Tarantino why he was all wrong for the role before accepting it. Perhaps this is just how the actor operates.
When I heard the news my first thought was the Green Goblin as he’s Spider-man’s arch-enemy and is the character that seems to most match his previous roles. Him as Norman Osborn could be something like his role in “Pacific Heights” and the Green Goblin persona could be a darker version of his Beetlejuice performance. However, Marvel has stated that they want to use some Spider-man villains that haven’t been used before on-screen which throws that possibility out the window. The most popular theory is that he would be playing the Vulture which I have to admit never occurred to me, but actually makes a lot of sense now that I think about it especially after his turn in “Birdman.” Although I think the Chameleon would be an interesting choice for him and unique pick for the films. “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is set to be released on July 7th, 2017.
What do you think? Do you want to see Michael Keaton in a Spider-Man film? If so what character do you think he should play?
This story was first reported by Deadline.
