John Cena appears to be testing the waters for potentially playing Sandman in a future Spider-Man movie with a curious image posted to the WWE superstar’s official Instagram account. This week, digital artist Jackson Caspersz posted some interesting fan art online depicting how Cena might look if he were to play the part. As the casting suggestion quickly had a lot of fans sold upon seeing the fan art, the image went viral, sowing the seeds for a possible entrance into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Cena portraying the sandy supervillain.
Apparently, word of the fan interest in seeing John Cena as Sandman made it back to the 16-time world champion, and the wrestler chose to fan the flames by posting an image of the character on his own Instagram page. The artwork depicts Sandman preparing to pulverize poor Spidey with a sand-made hammer hand, leaving our favorite web-slinger looking terrified and vulnerable. It’s a great illustration of the supervillain at work, but Cena stopped short of adding a caption or any comments to the post. Clearly, Cena is wanting his fans to keep the discussion going, and posting the picture seems to suggest that the F9 star would be up for the role.
There’s been no indication that Sandman will be featured in any future Marvel movie, but it’s definitely possible. Tom Holland is set to reprise the role of Peter Parker in the MCU in his third solo Spider-Man movie, but it remains unclear which villains the web-slinger will be facing in the upcoming movie. This opens the door for someone like Sandman to step in, possibly played by Cena as many fans seem to be hoping for. Of course, should that fail, there would always be the option for Sony to bring in Cena’s Sandman into their own Marvel cinematic universe, similar to how they’ve already done so with Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock in Venom.
Sandman has gotten some recognition on the big screen in years gone by. One of the Elementals featured in Spider-Man: Far From Home is also clearly inspired by the Sandman, though it’s still technically not the same character. The Flint Marko version of Sandman was included much more prominently in Sam Raimi’s 2007 sequel Spider-Man 3, which was the third and final installment of the original Spider-Man movie trilogy with Tobey Maguire. Thomas Haden Church played the supervillain in the movie.
As for Cena, time will tell if he’ll make his way into a Marvel movie, but the actor is already set to appear soon enough in the DCEU. Thanks to writer and director James Gunn, Cena will star as the violent pacifist Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad as part of an ensemble cast that also features names like Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, Joel Kinnaman, Peter Capaldi, and Viola Davis. Perhaps if Cena’s take on the DC character is well received by fans, the odds will be in his favor for scoring the role of Sandman – or perhaps another supervillain – in the MCU as well. This news comes to us from John Cena on Instagram.
