India will soon witness the first-ever Indian Spider-Man from the Marvel Cinematic Universe on the silver screen. Sony India has just announced that the upcoming animated Miles Morales movie, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-verse will hit theatres in India on June 1, 2023, a day before its US release. The movie will feature India’s very own Pavitr Prabhakar as Spider-Man from Earth-50101.
Karan Soni, known for playing the taxi driver Dopinder in Deadpool has voiced Pavitr Prabhakar alongside actors Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, and Oscar Isaac. But Across the Spider-Verse is also releasing across India in 10 languages including English. Of these, the Hindi and Punjabi dubs feature Indian cricketer Shubman Gill as Pavitr Prabhakar.
Shubman Gill recently appeared in a closed door meet as part of promotions for his upcoming stint as Pavitr Prabhakar in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. He shared a lot of things including how he prepared for the role, how much he geeks out about the superhero and so much more. Shony Panjikaran, General Manager and Head of Sony Pictures Releasing International (SPRI) India was also present at the event. Sony launched the latest trailer at the event featuring Pavitr Prabhakar, in nine languages beyond English. Let's check everything Shubman Gill shared at the event here.
Shubman Gill on becoming the voice of Pavitr Prabhakar
Shony Panjikaran explained how there are a lot of similarities between Spider-Man and Shubman. He went on to add, “He is the youngest superhero we all know of, and Shubman is one of the youngest cricketers in the cricket team, and more importantly he has achieved so much in this young age." Panjikaran also said, " He is the only Indian cricketer, who has hit a ton in Test cricket, ODIs, T20I and Indian Premier League.” He highlighted that Gill is “like a true hero for millions of youngsters out there and that’s what we were looking for in our Spiderman.”
According to Panjikaran, Shubman Gill ‘represents’ the essence of the iconic quote, “With great power comes great responsibility”. On this note, Gill also said, how real pleasure comes from giving, and how even as a cricketer, he would get immense joy in knowing that he has been able to change a person’s life for the better. Gill aspires to inspire people in matters of fitness and discipline that he has been able to imbibe in his life because of cricket.
Moving on to how Gill prepared for the role, given how he’s first a sportsman, he explained that being the voice of Pavitr Prabhakar was an exciting, first opportunity for him. He also had an interesting take on this opportunity. Gill said that he got to learn a lot about himself in the process of learning how to voice-act.
Shubman also answered the questions wondering if voice acting was the call for him to step into the world of acting finally officially like many other cricketers before him. The question allowed him to fanboy about Spider-Man. But he was uncertain about the possibility of displaying his acting prowess more frequently.
“I don’t know if it’s halfway into acting, but when I saw how the character ultimately turned out, it felt very nice.”- Shubman Gill
Shubman Gill is a Spider-Man fan
He expressed how great it was as a Spider-Man fan to see an Indian Spider-Man on screen. Gill said, “When I was watching it, I was like, wow, this is so cool, and it is even cooler that I did it.”
As for how big of a Spider-Man fan Gill is, he recalls about the first time he watched Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man in 2002, starring Toby McGuire. He watched the movie on the television, with his entire family, twice in two days.
As a kid, Gill would climb on doors and think of himself as a superhero, much like Spidey, under the impression that nobody else could do it. He also loves reading comics and has read many Thor issues in the past.
Gill has also played Sony PlayStation’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020), along with a friend. He said he took 45 days to complete the game the last time and is excited to see how long he would take to finish the upcoming Spider-Man 2 game.
On a lighter note, about Ispiderman
Now that MCU has its' own Indian Spider-Man, Panjikaran was asked if Sony has any plans of remaking the one iconic song from the movie “Desi Spiderman”. This is one song that has reached heights of popularity with Tom Holland being made to dance to it, to Rishabh Pant singing the song in the middle of a cricket match against Australia on the field, and more. To our amusem*nt, Panjikaran admitted that Sony had in fact, thought about it a lot of times in the past few years.
“But how do you create a spoof of a spoof, that is what is the million-dollar question. But then there’s the meme, where the three spider-mans are pointing at each other. And I think that the best ode to that has been done by the filmmakers in Across the Spider-verse that you’d know of if you’ve seen the trailers. So, who knows, maybe down the future, we have a Pavitr Prabhakar, we could have somebody associated with Pavitr Prabhakar and there could be an ode to the song Spider-Man Spider-Man tune churaya mere dil ka chain. So ya, just wait and watch.”
Additionally, Gill was also asked who he would cast from India as the voice for Venom, and he promptly said “Virat bhai” (meaning Virat Kohli). He also thinks Ishan Kishan would do well as the voice of the OG Spider-Man, Peter Parker.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse coming to Indian theatres on June 1, 2023
Panjikaran reiterated that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse will release in around 1800 theatres across India in ten languages. The list of languages includes, English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Bengali. Gill won’t be able to attend the premiere with his friends and family because of his obligations for the Indian National Cricket Team. However, he revealed that if he could, he would love to go to the premier in a spider-man costume as that’s something he has always wanted to do. Regardless, Spider-Man launches in India on June 1, and worldwide on June 2, 2023.
