Sony’s Spider-Man Universe continues expanding with the addition of a new character from Marvel Comics, though a lesser-known one: El Muerto, who will star in his own movie, but who is he and how does he fit the already established Spider-Man universe? Marvel continues dominating the big screen with its two connected yet separate universes: the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, linked through Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland).
While the MCU keeps bringing a variety of villains, heroes, and allies to the big screen and streaming, Sony’s universe is focusing more on villains and antiheroes with links to Spider-Man, beginning with Eddie Brock/Venom. The box office success of Venom made way for more movies from Sony’s side of the Marvel universe, as are Venom: Let There Be Carnage and Morbius, and the studio already has a long list of projects lined up for the near future, most notably Kraven the Hunter (starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Madame Web (starring Dakota Johnson), and the latest addition to it is El Muerto.
The film adaptation of El Muerto is scheduled to be Sony’s first Marvel movie in 2024, but given that it’s not a widely-known character and the studio’s casting choice came as a big surprise, there are a lot of questions about the project and the character, especially about its connection to Spider-Man. Here’s everything you need to know about the character of El Muerto and his upcoming movie.
El Muerto's Origin & Spider-Man History In Marvel Comics
Juan Carlos Estrada Sánchez comes from a family of wrestlers known as El Muerto, who wore mystical masks that granted them power. Juan Carlos was trained by his father, Marcus Estrada de la García, but he wasn’t interested in following his family’s wrestling legacy. As part of the “ritual” of passing down the mantle of El Muerto, each wrestler has to prove themselves in a match against their oppressor, El Dorado, in order to remain alive and keep their powers. However, as Juan Carlos never wanted to be El Muerto, he cowered in terror and refused to fight El Dorado, so the latter tried to kill him, but Marcus sacrificed himself to save his son’s life. Out of respect for Marcus’ courage, El Dorado granted Juan Carlos ten years to travel, train, and become brave, and then he would have to duel a masked wrestler and unmask him.
A decade later, El Muerto traveled to New York City with the intention of fighting and defeating Spider-Man, so he approached J. Jonah Jameson to set up a charity event with a wrestling match. Jameson agreed in hopes that El Muerto would be the one who finally unmasked Spider-Man, and El Muerto came really close to achieving that. As El Muerto was about to unmask Spider-Man, the web-slinger inadvertently poisoned him with a stinger that accidentally sprung from his wrist. El Muerto was paralyzed and sent to the hospital, but that wasn’t the end of his problems. El Muerto’s time had run out, and El Dorado arrived to kill him, but Spider-Man rescued him and fought El Dorado until El Muerto recovered and finally proved himself to be worthy of the mask. While El Muerto fought El Dorado, Spider-Man created a reagent that dissolved El Dorado’s armor, leaving him vulnerable to injury and prompting him to leave.
El Muerto's Powers in Marvel Comics
As mentioned above, El Muerto wears a mystical mask that grants him power, but the origins of it haven’t been explored. The powers that the El Muerto mask grants to its wearer are superhuman strength and superhuman endurance, along with enhanced speed. El Muerto’s main ability is being a highly-skilled wrestler (of course!) in different wrestling styles, and he’s also fluent in Spanish and speaks broken English. El Muerto’s most notable traits are his strength and fighting skills, but as he has only appeared twice in the comics, he might have other powers and abilities that haven’t been explored yet but could very well be added in his upcoming movie.
Bad Bunny Will Play El Muerto In Sony's Spider-Man Universe Movie
Sony is already a couple of steps ahead in its plans of bringing El Muerto to the big screen and his already found its lead in Bad Bunny. The Puerto Rican rapper, singer, actor, and professional wrestler was announced as the star of El Muerto during Sony’s panel at CinemaCon in April 2022, making him the first Latino lead in a Marvel movie. Although Bad Bunny is best known for his music career (a combination of Latin trap and reggeaton), he has also made his way to the big screen and TV with a recurring role in Narcos: México (where he played Arturo ‘Kitty’ Paez) and a reportedly scene-stealing performance in Bullet Train. In addition to that, Bad Bunny is a professional wrestler and briefly joined the WWE in 2021 and made a surprise return in 2022 at the Royal Rumble, where he eliminated Sheamus and Dolph Ziggler before he was eliminated by the eventual winner, Brock Lesnar.
Everything We Know About Sony's El Muerto Movie
Although Sony has a long list of Marvel projects coming up, there aren’t many details about most of them, and El Muerto is among those. Sony announced the project at Cinema Con but didn’t provide details beyond Bad Bunny being cast as Juan Carlos, but as the plan is for it to be released in theaters on January 12, 2024, it should go into production in late 2022/early 2023, so it shouldn't be long until more details are revealed. Given that El Muerto hasn’t featured prominently in the comics, this will give Sony some freedom to build his story and explore his abilities and powers, but the studio also has to learn from its past mistakes (namely Morbius) in order for El Muerto and the rest of Sony's planned movies to work. More casting announcements and plot details will be revealed once El Muerto starts filming, but until then, what’s known is that it will be Sony’s first movie in 2024 and Bad Bunny’s first lead role on the big screen.
