Sony's El Muerto Movie Should Exist This Weekend

A full month from now, will be making its way into theaters. Like and before it, the film is Sony’s bid at making a universe of interconnected Spider Man movies that don’t feature the hero in question. And in another universe, we’d have one of those movies playing out in theaters this weekend.

In mid 2022, Sony curiously announced it was working on a movie for that was set to release on January 12, 2024. If you haven’t heard of him, don’t worry, he’s only really shown up in two issues, both of which were back in 2006 . Created by Peter David and Roger Cruz during the former’s run, the mantle belongs to two men: Juan Carlos Sánchez and his father, Marcus Estrada de la García.

Marcus trained Juan Carlos to become the next El Muerto, wrestlers who wore mystical masks that give them superhuman strength and durability. During the final part of the test, the two are attacked by another supernatural wrestler named El Dorado, who kills Marcus. Juan Carlos spent the following ten years training to avenge his father and sought out Spider Man so to beat the hero in a wrestling match and unmask him; the two later teamed up against El Dorado and sent him fleeing.

El Muerto hasn’t been seen since, but Sony’s would be movie for him had an ace up its sleeve in Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka . The Puerto Rican rapper has been a professional wrestler since 2021, and he was already starting to branch out into acting with Netflix’s and the then upcoming action flick .

But Sony didn’t have anything on hand for the film beyond Ocasio’s inclusion, not even so much as a title card or director attached. And over a full year after the announcement, the studio pulled the film from entirely, and it’s unclear asto what capacity currently exists. It’s a weird series of events, but not entirely abnormal for Sony.

Back in 2014, the studio announced it was working on a movie dubbed that had Gina Prince Blythewood on hand to direct. That project was then seemingly scrapped to focus on , and now it’s just apparently full on dead, ditto an Aunt May movie mentioned in the infamous . Sony’s plans for its of Spider Man adjacent media is all over the place, and even with a trilogy set to close this year and two different Spider Man characters getting their own TV shows, it remains unclear which of these will actually, truly happen.

Where would we be if the had come out as intended? It’s hard to say; wrestling is very popular, and Bad Bunny is a pretty good artist, but the character’s concept feels like a hard sell. Big budget wrestling movies don’t really get made these days, and wrestlers like , , and have taken more organic swings into the superhero space.

More importantly, Sony’s seemingly content with its superhero films feeling like they’re from two decades ago and just doing whatever the hell they want. But was a clear indicator that style of filmmaking can only go so far, so maybe it’s for the best that Sony either benched until it’s sure the film’s ready to step into the ring or told it to hit the showers.

, and.