Sony Pictures has taken some big swings with Spider-Man over the years, but could a future movie portray him as a gay man? The Amazing Spider-Man star Andrew Garfield would like to think so, though he's been advocating for that since 2013.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly for The Uprising, Garfield was reminded of comments he made nearly a decade and a half ago about Peter Parker's sexuality.
"I was kind of joking, but kind of not joking about MJ. I was like, 'What if MJ is a dude?'" the actor said in 2013 about a conversation he'd had with producer Matt Tolmach. "Why can’t we discover that Peter is exploring his sexuality? It’s hardly even groundbreaking! So why can’t he be gay? Why can’t he be into boys?"
Garfield even suggested that eventual Black Panther and Sinners star Michael B. Jordan—whose career was sparking great interest at the time thanks to Chronicle—would be a great love interest for Spidey.
Reflecting on that statement now, he pondered, "It was an exercise in rebellion that I felt passionate about. I just still believe that anyone can be in that suit."
"That’s the point of why it’s such a kind of universally beloved character, one of the greatly beloved characters in the history of fiction," Garfield continued, "is because you don’t see skin color, you don’t see gender, you don’t see sexuality. Anyone can project themselves into that suit."
"I like the idea of a place where everyone is being honored and everyone is being included, and it was just a kind of act of saying, 'Well, why not?'" he continued. "And you’ll be telling on yourself if you have a strong opinion either way."
This is a change that would be a step too far for many fans, and it seems unlikely that even Sony would head down that route in any future Spider-Man project. As for Garfield, he's expected to return as "Peter #3" in next December's Avengers: Secret Wars.
Talking to The Playlist, the actor said he'd want something "very, very odd," "very, very odd," and "completely unconventional" to return as Spider-Man, and even suggested a Spidey-led road-trip movie.
Asked if that's something we could see in the Multiverse Saga finale, Garfield joked, "Why don’t you write a spec script and I’ll read it. I don’t know. I mean, all of you’ve thought about this far, far more than I have. He’s a humble dude. I dig that. He likes to be the underdog of the underdogs. Yes. Peter 3. No, I don’t know, man."
Asked about The Amazing Spider-Man 3, he added, "Like, I honestly, it’s something that I do in my idle moments, go, 'Oh, what could that be like,' you know. Yeah, I get, I go into my seven-year-old imagination. And I’m like, 'Oh, what would it be? What could it be? What would be fun? What would be healing? What would be joyful?'"
"And, you know, I haven’t really landed on anything personally yet," he added. "But I’m sure that if it’s meant to be, it’ll be."
Spider-Man: Brand New Day has broken box office records with just the one web-slinger, so there's no real need for Sony to reunite the three Spider-Men in this next trilogy. However, Avengers: Secret Wars would be the perfect place to give Garfield and Tobey Maguire a fitting send-off.
Avengers: Doomsday is set to be released on December 18, with Avengers: Secret Wars scheduled to arrive on December 17, 2027.