Marvel TV head Brad Winderbaum says the upcoming Marvel show Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man has stopped aiming to be MCU canon due to the fact that it would put limitations on the Disney Plus show.
"It started out as 'Okay it's Spider-Man’s freshman year, he’s going to be a freshman, can we get away with this being entirely in the MCU?' and very early on in the development process, we realized how locked in that actually made us,” said Winderbaum in an interview with Phase Hero. “We couldn't really use his rogues gallery, we couldn't really use his origin. It was not fun, honestly. We would've had to put so many limiters on our story to get it to lock into canon."
Winderbaum added that the limitations caused by trying to make the show canon put the team in a "hard place" in terms of development when trying to align the in-show Peter Parker’s timeline with that of the current MCU live-action Spider-Man played by Tom Holland. "Every single project I’ve worked on, they've all had a life of their own.... You have to let them live their own lives and go where they want to go."
However, just because the show will be a little different from what we see on the big screen in terms of origin story and recurring villains, that doesn't mean it won't feel like a true Spidey story. "It does have a lot of DNA that is very similar to the MCU depiction of the Tom Holland Spider-Man, but it really also draws all the way back to Steve Ditko," said the TV head, referring to Ditko who co-created the hero for Marvel comics. "It's adjacent to the main continuity but really speaks to what is inheritant about the character."
Part of Marvel’s Phase 5, the animated series is based on Holland’s Spidey but takes place in an alternate MCU timeline where Peter Parker is guided by Norman Osborn instead of Tony Stark. Hudson Thames voices Spider-Man, Colman Domingo plays Osborn, and Grace Song will play Peter's best friend, Nico Minoru. Charlie Cox will return as Daredevil. The show will also feature some of our favorite comic book villains such as Doc Ock, Chameleon, Rhino, and Scorpion.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man swings into Disney Plus on January 29, 2025. For more, check out our list of the best shows on Disney Plus, or keep up with upcoming Marvel TV shows and movies.
