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[Muz]

Oh no. If the character is white, then the movie portrayal of the character is supposed to be white. If he's 20, the portrayal shouldn't be 40. If he's green, don't make him blue.

If you really want a black superhero, then make one. There's already Luke Cage, the Green Lantern, and the new Nick Fury. Rewrite the comics before you rewrite the movie's portrayal of the comic character. I'm neither white nor black and I want my Spider-Man and Superman to be white people. I think Smallville redid Clark Kent's best friend to be black, though, and they got it working fine. But only because nobody knew that guy.

[Jackrabbit]

It doesn't seem like that much of an affront. Spiderman's skin color did not play any part in who he was, except that presumably rednecks didn't burn the comics in protest. Why would it be such a big deal? Is it because it'd be jarring? Because that doesn't strike me as that horrible.

[Aqizzar]

Oh God, I hadn't thought of writers stereotyping him. If the guy is cast, pray they have enough sense not to do that.

Will Smith as Spiderman.  Will Smith, time-abducted from 1989.  Failing that, Jaleel White.

[Muz]

Will Smith's already a superhero. Only one actor can be one superhero at a time. I wouldn't want Michael Keaton, Christopher Reeve, Jack Black, Robert Downey Junior, or Johnny Depp as Spider-Man.

[bjlong]

Really, a lot of heroes could be made black. Wolverine, Captain America, Gambit, and many more. The thing is, it makes sense for them to be black--their backstories don't become harder to justify, and their weaknesses don't change significantly.

Spiderman, on the other hand, has a backstory of being the tragic nerd--doesn't know a thing about social interaction, and is only concerned with science. And Mary Jane. If he were black, it would be atypical, which means we'd have to justify it a bit more for moviegoers. His weakness is that he can't ever show up on time for his job, his dates, or anything basically that Peter Parker needs to do, and so loses his jobs and love interests fairly quickly. If he's black, this plays into the cheating, slacking-off stereotype, which raises a lot of red flags in my mind. We'd probably get hamhanded explanations of why you should let that guy have a second chance, even though by all rights he should be fired, because racism is wrong.

But I'm sure competent writers can take care of this--really, really depends on the writers.

On another related topic, Will Smith would have been a kick-ass Neo.

Someone call Hollywood. Ask them why this didn't happen.

[Jackrabbit]

You know why it didn't happen? He turned it down to do Wild Wild West. There's no justice in the world.

[Aqizzar]

I think he tried to make up for it with I, Robot.  That was trying pretty damn hard to be The Matrix at points.

Uncomfortably acknowledgment of social norms.

For a second, I wanted to blast this as a ridiculous oversimplification on the verge of being genuinely racist itself.  Then I remembered that's exactly the point.  For the record, I don't think Captain America could be black, because his identity relies so much on being the All-American Posterboy, very much like Superman, and making him black would raise a lot of very obvious questions about who stands for what.

[Mfbrew]

Irrelevant of race, does the world really need ANOTHER tired old rehashing of an ancient comic book?

Here's the formula for success in movies (and games):
1. Get the rights to an existing franchise nobody cares about anymore
2. Change everything about it to prove that you're a "creative" and "visionary" director/writer/producer
3. Create some empty fluff to fill theater seats and sell popcorn
4. Churn out sequels until someone else takes over the franchise and reboots it into an even worse incarnation

[DJ]

Spiderman, on the other hand, has a backstory of being the tragic nerd--doesn't know a thing about social interaction, and is only concerned with science. And Mary Jane. If he were black, it would be atypical, which means we'd have to justify it a bit more for moviegoers. His weakness is that he can't ever show up on time for his job, his dates, or anything basically that Peter Parker needs to do, and so loses his jobs and love interests fairly quickly. If he's black, this plays into the cheating, slacking-off stereotype, which raises a lot of red flags in my mind. We'd probably get hamhanded explanations of why you should let that guy have a second chance, even though by all rights he should be fired, because racism is wrong.

I think the guy that played Steve Urkel could pull off the nerd stereotype. You know, I think he'd make an excellent Spiderman.

But Spiderman shouldn't be played by a black guy. It should be an Italian actor.

[Josephus]

When it comes to re-imagining superheroes there's two things that I think should never be changed. Sexuality and gender. Like, how the new Batgirl is a lesbian. What? Why would you make her a lesbian? Did Batman go around boning girls all the time? Did Batgirl go around boning men?

First off: Batwoman.

Second: Hot lesbians are hot.

Third: Her character was really well handled in 52.

[Jude]

It would be one thing to make a new superhero who's black, or Arab, or Inuit, or what have you, but changing a 60 year old (or however old) character's race just comes off as a really shitty attempt at tokenism.

[Muz]

We need a jewish or ginger superhero. Or some Asian one (by asian, I mean all sorts of things from japanese to russian to arab or indian or thai..) Actually, the new cartoons are doing a good job at that. Too many Chinese kung fu/techie heroes though. Someone should make a Chinese guy who acts like Will Smith.

[Josephus]

That'd be as painful to watch as Will Smith acting like a Chinese guy.

[Cecilff2]

But can he top Italian Spiderman?

[Josephus]

But can he top Italian Spiderman?

NO ONE can top Italian Spiderman. Not even Japanese Spider-Man.