For all the talk about Marvel’s street-level corner getting darker, grittier, and more violent, Reinaldo Marcus Green may already have his eye on a different part of that web. The “The Punisher: One Last Kill” director told The Playlist in an interview today that while he loved working with Jon Bernthal on the upcoming Disney+ special, he would gladly return to Marvel for another character—Miles Morales.
In our interview, Green, who directed “King Richard” and HBO’s “We Own This City”—both of which feature his “Punisher” star Jon Bernthal— was not shy about wanting to keep working in genre, and specifically with Marvel. His latest project with Bernthal brings Frank Castle back in a TV-MA special that Green described as one of the darkest Marvel stories yet, shaped heavily by Bernthal’s long-running ownership of the character. But when asked what was next, Green pointed to another Marvel dream gig with a very personal pitch.
“The long play is to get back into Marvel,” Green told The Playlist. “Obviously, if Spider-Man, Spider-Verse live-action Miles Morales comes along, I know of a half Black, half Puerto Rican Mets fan from New York that would be right for that,” the Bronx-raised filmmaker said with a knowing grin, “So we’ll see.”
Of course, this was all pie-in-the-sky, and Green made no claim that a live-action Miles Morales film was in motion. But it was a pointed bit of self-casting from a filmmaker whose own background overlaps with the character’s most famous comic-book identity: a Brooklyn-born Afro-Latino Spider-Man who has become one of Marvel’s defining younger heroes through comics, animation, and the Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” franchise.
For now, Green’s Marvel focus is Frank Castle. “The Punisher: One Last Kill” reunites him with Bernthal after “King Richard” and “We Own This City,” and Green said the whole project came from Bernthal’s long-standing desire to push the character into harsher, more psychologically complicated territory.
“This is somebody that’s lived with that character for over 10 years and knew him intimately well, knew who Frank was,” Green said of his lead actor and co-writer on the special. “This was really his idea. This was his brainchild. So all the credit goes to John. He really cast me as the director.”
The filmmaker also pushed the special toward a more grounded New York crime-movie language, citing Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, “Mean Streets,” “Goodfellas,” and Sidney Lumet as part of the DNA. He also singled out Oscar-winning cinematographer Robert Elswit, who shot the special (and “King Richard”), as one of the reasons “One Last Kill” could feel distinct within the Marvel machine.
“It’s really a character study,” Green said. “I think that’s what this piece is about. That’s what John brings to it. It’s that humanity. We were able to find the humanity in Frank, or at least try to, for this piece.”
That same interest in damaged men and complicated legacies is probably why Green’s Miles Morales comment lands as more than a casual fanboy aside. His best-known work has often dealt with men under intense public, familial, or institutional pressure, whether it was Richard Williams in “King Richard,” the corrupt Baltimore cops of “We Own This City,” or now Frank Castle. A live-action Miles movie would require a different mode, but would likely still tackle ideas about identity, pressure, legacy, and New York.
Green recently finished a Hulu pilot for “Southern Bastards,” starring Tim McGraw, Kevin Bacon, and Erin Kellyman, and he also has a Tiger Woods biopic in development. Still, he sounded genuinely energized by the Marvel experience and left the door open for more.
“I just want to work on fun characters, meaningful work with great people,” Green said.
Whether Marvel ever gives him Miles Morales remains the question. For the moment, Green has Frank Castle on deck, and a very public note to anyone at the studio considering who should help bring Miles to live action.
“The Punisher: One Last Kill” premieres May 12 on Disney+. More from this full interview shortly.
Rodrigo Perez is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Playlist, which he launched in 2008. He has worked in entertainment journalism since 2000, including at MTV, and has written for SPIN, IndieWire, Pitchfork, Complex, Magnet, and various music, film, and entertainment publications over the past two decades.
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