Death to ‘El Muerto’? Sony’s Bad Bunny Marvel Adaptation Faces Challenges Beyond the Strike
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Sony has removed “El Muerto,” a Marvel movie about a luchador supervillain starring Bad Bunny, from its theatrical-release calendar. The “Spider-Man” baddie’s standalone film was previously scheduled for January 12, 2024; now, per Sony, it’s “TBD.”
An individual with knowledge of the project told IndieWire that “El Muerto” is still in development, but with the writers strike ongoing and the musician’s tour dates, rescheduling the release is complicated. “El Muerto” isn’t the first superhero movie to be impacted by the WGA strike, but there are enough challenges here to wonder if “El Muerto” will be re-slotted, or if it’s down for the count.
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This morning, Sony emailed press with three updates to its domestic release calendar:
Seth Rogen’s “Dumb Money” has been moved up from October 20, 2023 to September 22, 2023.
“The Book of Clarence” is being pushed back from that September 22 date to January 12, 2024.
The “El Muerto” release date is now considered “TBD.”
There were multi-paragraph descriptions for both “Dumb Money” and “The Book of Clarence.” There was no synopsis at all for “El Muerto.”
“El Muerto,” first announced by Bad Bunny himself at CinemaCon 2022, was meant to begin shooting in Los Angeles in August 2023. But since the initial announcement, there have been no additional (public) castings or significant updates. And in terms of that whole tour thing, Bad Bunny does not currently have any dates announced. Of course, that could change soon — the Latin superstar headlined Coachella this spring and released a new track last month.
One movie producer (not affiliated with “El Muerto”) told IndieWire that it’s not time for Bad Bunny fans to freak out — not yet. After all, it would not be uncommon for even a short delay — let alone one like the writers strike that has no end in sight — to derail a production for quite a while.
“I wouldn’t necessarily write it off just because they changed the release date. It’s certainly possible, and the industry has a glut of content right now and is in a dramatic state,” the producer, who spoke with us on the condition of anonymity, said. “But if your production is being delayed because of the writers strike, that’s delaying the window, and you’re losing Bad Bunny, I can easily see the thing where ‘We’re going to lose a month on this, and the way the schedule lines up, we need to lose six months or a year.'”
In other words, today’s news does not make “El Muerto,” well, muerto. Sony surely wants to keep Bad Bunny close; he figured heavily into the marketing for their Brad Pitt action movie “Bullet Train” last summer. And Bad Bunny has put in time learning the ropes of pro wrestling — he faced Damien Priest at WWE premium live event “Backlash” in May.
“El Muerto” is set to be directed by Jonás Cuarón (Alfonso’s son) and written by Garrett Dunnet-Alcocer, who wrote this summer’s upcoming “Blue Beetle.” That DC film is the first superhero movie to have a Latino lead, and the producer speculates Sony could also be looking at the performance of that film to determine next steps.
As the producer said, “superhero fatigue is real,” and the El Muerto character, who appeared as a villain in just two Spider-Man comics back in the 2000s, is obscure even for the biggest comic nerds. This year has already saw the underperformance of superhero tentpoles like “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” and this past weekend’s “The Flash,” which opened to only $55 million domestic.
On the bright side for “El Muerto,” the exception to the trend has been anything “Spider-Man” adjacent. Sony’s wildly lauded “Spider-Verse” sequel currently seems bulletproof, having grossed nearly $500 million globally since opening early in June. Sony is also doubling down hard on its own universe of Spider-Man villain spinoff characters, with a new “Venom” movie in the works and “Madame Web” starring Dakota Johnson still on track for 2024. Reaction to Sony’s R-rated “Kraven the Hunter,” which just debuted a first trailer, has also been strong.
“There’s still novelty and freshness that can be brought to the genre, but I sense we may be hitting a saturation point,” the producer said. “There are signals we’re seeing that maybe people are ready to move on and see something different.”
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