‘Spider-Man’ Writers Want to Make New Reboot the Funniest Superhero Film

Comic book fans know that Spider-Man has always been something of a wise-ass, cracking a lot of jokes while on his way to defeating Doctor Octopus or Mysterio. The laughs in the cinematic versions of Spider-Man have varied. The three Sam Raimi film captured the tone of the books, but were mostly light on laughs (emo Peter Parker notwithstanding). The two Amazing Spider-Man movies captured some of Spidey’s goofiness (remember when Spider-Man pulled Rhino’s pants down?), but tried to balance that with a humorless plot. The new Spider-Man reboot is still a few years off, but the writers of the film are at least talking a good game about making Spider-Man’s humor crucial to the plot.

John Francis Daley and Jonathan M. Goldstein confirmed to NPR that they are writing the Marvel and Sony co-produced reboot and shared a few details on their take on Peter Parker’s personality:

He's a sharp kid and witty and kind of deals with the fact that he's an outcast and a geek through humor. It is sort of the safety net for geeks like us, so I think we can totally relate to where he's coming from. As well as the superpowers, which we also have.

We have some conflicted feelings about Daley and Goldstein (The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, the upcoming Vacation) writing the new Spider-Man movie. They’re saying the right things, and a Spider-Man movie should be funny, but also these guys haven’t really written any funny movies yet.

Also, Marc Webb, who directed the last two Spider-Man movies, was singing the same song about making Spidey funny again. From an interview with Superhero Hype back in 2014: “It's about embracing that humor, that funny bombastic character that you love from the comics. That Spider-Man that's like colorful and bright, and he's just great at fighting crime and he's having fun doing it. [...] He's not just clubbing these guys, he's telling them jokes.” And, we all know how that turned out.

So, while it’s nice that Daley, Goldstein and Marvel all want to make a funny superhero movie (and, given the success of both Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, that’s not surprising), we’ll reserve judgment until we’re actually watching a new Spider-Man movie and laughing.

Spider-Man opens in theaters on July 28, 2017.