Bad Bunny to Star in ‘El Muerto,’ Making Him Marvel’s First Latino Live-Action Lead

After exercising his wrestling and acting chops at several WWE events in recent years, Bad Bunny will soon hit the silver screen playing a wrestler with supernatural powers as the lead character in Spider-Man spinoff El Muerto, making the Puerto Rican chart-topper the first Latino to headline a live-action Marvel film.

The news was announced Monday during Sony Pictures’ presentation at CinemaCon, an annual gathering for movie theater owners, in Las Vegas. El Muerto is scheduled for release Jan. 12, 2024.

“This opportunity to bring El Muerto to life, it’s amazing. It’s incredible,” Bad Bunny said during the event, according to Indie Wire. “It will be epic, I’m sure.”

El Muerto follows Juan-Carlos Estrada Sanchez, an anti-hero wrestler who inherits a lucha libre mask that gives the wearer superhuman strength. The role is a natural fit for the longtime wrestling fan, who made his WWE WrestleMania debut last April, following appearances on Royal Rumble that January and February and winning the WWE 24/7 Championship belt on an episode of WWE’s Raw. “I love wrestling, I grew up watching wrestling,” the rapper-singer — who has also enlisted wrestlers Stone Cold Steve Austin and Booker T for past music videos — said Monday.

Bad Bunny starred in the third and final season of Netflix’s Narcos: Mexico, playing hitman Arturo “Kitty” Páez. He’s also slated to star alongside Brad Pitt in the action flick Bullet Train. In between acting gigs, the global superstar is still finding time to make music, too. He was a featured artist on reggaeton trailblazer Daddy Yankee’s final album, Legendaddy, and he recently announced his upcoming fourth studio album, Un Verano Sin Ti, with a viral marketing campaign involving a classified ad for a Bugatti Chiron.