Bad Bunny Will Star In New Marvel Pro-Wrestling Superhero Movie El Muerto
Bad Bunny is going to be a movie star. Up until now, the world has only gotten to see a tiny bit of acting from the massively popular Puerto Rican rap star, at least outside the realm of music videos. Benito Ocasio has made a cameo on F9: The Fast Saga, and he was on a few episodes of Narcos: Mexico. But Bad Bunny is set to fight Brad Pitt in the new action movie Bullet Train, and now he’s also about to become a Marvel superhero.
Bad Bunny is not joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe — at least, not yet. Instead, Variety reports that he’ll play the title character in the forthcoming Sony film El Muerto. Right now, Sony is attempting to build its own cinematic universe around tertiary characters; that effort has given us the Venom movies and Morbius. El Muerto is being billed as a stand-alone film, but it’s presumably part of that effort.
El Muerto is not a major Marvel character. He’s Juan-Carlos Estrada Sanchez, a pro wrestler given superhuman strength by a mask that’s been handed down to him through generations. In the comics, El Muerto once wrestled Spider-Man, but there’s not exactly a ton of lore around this character. Bad Bunny is a lifelong pro wrestling fan who’s wrestled for WWE a few times in the past — teaming with Damien Priest to defeat the Miz and John Morrison at last year’s Wrestlemania and then competing in this year’s Royal Rumble. If you were going to concoct a big-screen vehicle for Bad Bunny, “pro wrestling superhero” seems like a smart direction to go.
Sony announced the El Muerto movie at this year’s CinemaCon, suggesting that the story would portray the character as an antihero who’s about to inherit his father’s legacy. Bad Bunny appeared at CinemaCon alongside Sony exec Sanford Panitch, and he said that the role was “so exciting.” El Muerto is set to open in January 2024, after a Kraven The Hunter movie and an animated Madame Web film. In other Bad Bunny news, he just announced a new album via a classified ad for a Bugatti.