Michael Keaton is playing another winged comic book character. No, it’s not Batman this time. It’s the Vulture- with a new twist on his origins.
The actor will play the Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming. In a USA Today interview, Keaton talks about his character’s origins.
It sounds like Toomes will be a businessman and inventor much like the comics. The major change in his origin concerns his line of work. In the film, Tomes is a blue-collar worker who runs a salvaging company. By cleaning up after superhero battles, they act as the damage control for the MCU.
Director Jon Watts aims to focus on the street-level side of things. “My whole approach for this movie is that we’ve seen the penthouse level of the universe,” he says. “We’ve seen what it’s like to be a billionaire inventor and to be a Norse god. We’ve seen the very top of this world. But we’ve never seen what it’s like to be just a regular joe.”
Unlike previous Spidey villains, Toomes feels like he is a victim who has been wronged. “Some people see themselves as victims — he sees himself a little bit like that,” Keaton says. “He probably would have a strong argument that he never got a fair shot — a lot of ‘Why not me? Where’s mine?”
Vulture’s anger stems from a beef with Iron Man. After an accident, Toomes loses his contract when a Stark-backed company takes over. This leads to him teaming up with Shocker and Tinkerer for revenge.
Director Jon Watts confirms Toomes is going to use tech seen in the MCU. He describes it as “neat junk from all the other movies.”
“It’s a really great starting point for the villains to have the Vulture picking over the stuff,” Watts says. “And finding the valuable exotic elements and having the Tinkerer assemble into something that could be used.”
In essence, the Vulture will be a scavenger looking for materials to put to use. Watts explains Toomes is an interesting choice, because he brings a ground-level perspective to the MCU.
“I like the idea that in these huge movies, you pick out one extra and you’re like, ‘What does he think of all this?” he says. “Sometimes these movies are so casual about just destroying whole cities and incredible things happen and everyone’s like, ‘Eh, whatever.’ If that really happened, it would be amazing and change everything.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming arrives July 7, 2017.
