At the Ant-Man junket over the weekend, I had the opportunity to chat with Marvel head Kevin Feige. One of the questions I asked was about the Marvel Studios-produced upcoming Spider-Man reboot. If Captain America: The Winter Solider was a conspiracy thriller, and Ant-Man is a heist film, what can we expect for Spider-Man? Marvel has cleverly theorized that the key to preventing superhero overload at the multiplex is to set their stories inside other film genres. So what kind of film will the new Spider-Man movie be?

A Spider-Man John Hughes Movie

When I asked “If Captain America: The Winter Solider was a conspiracy thriller, and Ant-Man is a heist film, what kind of movie will the new Spider-Man be?” Marvel Studios co-president and producer Kevin Feige responded:

Spider-Man will be a “John Hughes” movie.

Imagine a Spider-Man John Hughes movie…

Hughes is, of course, the seminal 1980’s writer/director who was a part of such films as National Lampoon’s Vacation, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, European Vacation, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Planes Trains & Automobiles, Uncle Buck, Christmas Vacation, and Home Alone.

If I had to guess, I was think Feige is specifically speaking towards Hughes’ high school films.

A High School Story

Remember, Sony and Marvel just cast Tom Holland in the role of Peter Parker aka Spider-Man, and while The Impossible actor is 19 years old, he looks much younger. Feige previously confirmed that the new movie would follow Peter Parker set during his high school years:

We want to play with Spider-Man in the high school years because frankly there’ve been five Spider-Man films and the amazing thing about it is, even though there’ve been five Spider-Man films, there are so many things from the comics that haven’t been done yet. Not just characters or villains or supporting characters, but sides to his character. The most obvious being the ‘young, doesn’t quite fit in’ kid before his powers, and then the fella that puts on a mask and swings around and fights bad guys and doesn’t shut up, which is something we want to play with and we’re excited about. […] [S]ome of my favorite Spider-Man arcs and Spider-Man stories, he’s in high school for a lot of it. We want to explore that. That also makes him very, very different from any of our other characters in the MCU, which is something else we want to explore: how unique he is when now put against all these other characters.

A Kid Among Larger Than Life Heroes

Feige has also said that the film won’t be another origin story, as audiences have already seen that story two times prior. Also at the Ant-Man junket, Feige told Zap2It the biggest thing about this new Spider-Man movie is that he is a kid among other larger than life superheroes:

“The biggest thing … is that it takes place in this universe. It’s the first time that you’ll be able to see Spider-Man like he was in the comics, as a very different type of hero when compared to the other heroes in the universe. Up until this point in the other Spidey films — some of which are some of the best superhero movies ever made — he was the only hero, and now he’s not. Now he’s a kid in Queens with these powers and has other [superheroes] to look to.”

As for whether or not those other Marvel heroes will appear alongside the new Peter Parker in the first Marvel Studios-produced Spider-Man movie, Feige was more cagey. He told ComingSoon:

“Right now, it’s all about producing the new stand-alone Spider-Man movie. That’s what Sony is focused on. That’s what we’re focused on, and whatever happened before that or after that, sort of remains to be seen, but it’s all about producing the best Spider-Man movie we can, certainly within the Sony Universe, next July.”

An Entirely New Villain?

Also at the junket, the producer told Birth.movies.death that we should expect an entirely new villain:

“That’s the advantage. Right now we’re interested in seeing villains we haven’t seen before.”

Which villain this may be is unclear, but it seems like Marvel and Sony want to go for a much more contained story set in a high school, so I would;t expect some huge big bad who is trying to destroy the world. Who do you think Spider-man will face in the new movie