Wall-crawling superhero looks to steal hearts in China

Spider-Man actor Tom Holland meets fans in Beijing at a promotional event for the new film Spider-Man: Homecoming, which will release across Chinese mainland theaters on Friday. [Photo provided to China Daily]

In Marvel comic books, Peter Parker is a New Yorker. But should the famed character, also known as Spider-Man, not have a New York accent? The answer is complicated.

Thanks to globalization, an English actor is the latest Spider-Man on the silver screen. And, he was recently in Beijing to visit the Great Wall.

There is more. The wall-crawling hero also traveled to other landmarks, which are featured in an anthology of posters titled Beautiful China.

In the posters, released by the Chinese promoters, he is seen surrounded by pandas, standing with the Terracotta Warriors, ornamented guards buried with China's first emperor more than 2,000 years ago.

When Spider-Man actor Tom Holland alongside director Jon Watts showed up at a promotional event in Beijing on Monday, the display of the posters tailored for the Chinese mainland market sparked excitement.

Spider-Man: Homecoming, the sixth Spider-Man movie in history, will open across the Chinese mainland in multiple formats, including Imax 3-D, on Friday, about two months after many other parts of the world.

So far, the movie, with Holland reprising his Spider-Man role from Captain America: Civil War, has raked in $740 million across the world.

The 133-minute movie also features Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., reprising his role of Iron Man, and Jon Favreau, director of two Iron Man movies, playing an assistant of Iron Man, in the new movie.

The latest movie is more like a coming-of-age story about the superhero in high school.