Looking to continue to expand and diversify its universe of Marvel characters, Sony has announced a El Muerto movie is in development with Latin Grammy winner and platinum-selling recording artist Bad Bunny attached to star. The news came out of Cinemacon during Sony’s panel where Bad Bunny made a surprise appearance.
The character of El Muerto aka Juan Carlos was a super powered wrestler who originally fought Spider-Man in a charity wrestling where he nearly unmasked Spider-Man before being stung by Spider-Man, with a paralyzing poison. After being saved from the hospital by Spider-Man after his opressor El Dorado came to claim his life, the two would team up to defeat Dorado.
El Muerto would mark the first Latin superhero to get his own film in the universe of Marvel characters, coming right after Sony recently dated Madame Web, which marked the first female-centric character from the Spider-Man universe to get her own film.
Though the character isn’t as popular as Venom or Kraven the Hunter, Sony’s rush to get this film into development had a lot to do with Bad Bunny’s persistence in finding that right superhero property for himself. Bad Bunny is set to make his major studio debut in the highly-anticipated action pic Bullet Train on July 29, a project the studio is very high on and has already led to Aaron Taylor-Johnson landing the lead role in Kraven the Hunter. The same situation looks to have happened to Bad Bunny as well following recent test screenings where his character in the film came out with some of highest scores among the all-star cast.
Following some recent meetings in trying to figure out a star vehicle for him, the multi-hyphenate took matters into his own hands as he began mining the Spider-Man library for latin characters that would suit him best eventually coming across El Muerto. The studio loved the idea and hope is to move fast on the project given Bad Bunny’s busy schedule that includes touring and acting.
Besides Bullet Train, he was also recently seen in Narcos: Mexico and has Cassandro coming out w Gael García Bernal. He also recently wrapped his arena tour El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo.
He is repped by UTA and Rimas Entertainment.
Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group President Sanford Panitch, who introduced Bad Bunny onstage tonight, said that El Muerto will come out on Jan. 12, 2024.