Spider-Man may live in New York City but Marvel’s wall-crawler will have a memorable West Coast fling starting this summer. To be more precise, a new robot stunt double for Spider-Man will be soaring though the air at California Adventure in Anaheim this summer and, in the video above, you can see the masked machine man in action.
Also, in a second video below, there’s a better view of the stunt robot’s workings. The clip is from The Imagineering Story, a behind-the-scenes series that showcases the work of Disney Imagineers, who have a long, grand history of “animatronic” inventions that have brought characters to “life,” be they pirates or presidents. The life-size robotic Spidey is not much of a conversationalist, however, and he might be described uncharitably as a cos-play crash test dummy with acrobatic flair. Still, he’s a marvel of design and fluid motion and he looks pretty awesome hurtling through the Southern California sky.
Spidey is portrayed on the big screen these days by Tom Holland and (much to the relief of Imagineers) the Avengers protege has retained his rare dual cinematic citizenship (with solo films from Sony’s Columbia Pictures and tie-in appearances in Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe) despite a negotiation dust-up.
The stunt Spidey will be a component of growing Marvel presence planned for Anaheim.Spider-Man has been the signature character of Marvel Comics since his debut in the Summer of 1962 in the pages of Amazing Fantasy No. 15. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the spindly, web-slinging, wall-crawling young do-gooder moves like no other hero. As his 1960s TV theme song put it: Can he swing from a thread? Take a look overhead. Hey, there — there goes the Spider-Man…
Disney’s Imagineers have long been fascinated with the spectacle prospects of life-sized characters flying over the park — in fact next year marks the 60th anniversary of Disneyland’s first fly-over by Tinkerbell, aka a grinning cast member in pixie green riding on a zip-line. Entrusting the precarious stunt duty to a super-durable automaton reduces employee risk and raises big possibilities for the future. The sky’s the limit if Imagineers can figure out a flying hammer…