Twitter Campaign Wants ‘Community’ Actor to Be First Non-White Spider-Man

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If thousands of Twitter users get their way, the star of Sony’s upcoming reboot of the franchise will be Donald Glover, best known from his role on NBC’s “Community.” This weekend the Twitter hashtag “donald4spiderman” became the #3 trending topic in the U.S., and the campaign is still gaining steam.

The origins of this latest attempt by social media users to influence casting decisions occurred last week. After surveying the five mostly unknown white actors said to be vying for the role, Marc Bernadin, a writer for the sci-fi site io9.com, called the choices “bland” and asked, “In this day and age, why does Spidey have to be a white guy?” In response, commenters threw out Donald Glover’s name as a possible contender, and a Twitter campaign was born.

A unique aspect of this latest fan campaign is its wholehearted support by the subject in question. Glover seems to like the idea (though he makes it clear on his Twitter page that he’s interested in auditioning, not just being handed the role without first having to prove his worthiness). While he had nothing to do with its inception, Glover himself has been promoting the campaign, instructing fans to tweet the #donald4spiderman hash tag at strategic times to keep it trending.

{snip} He and his fans will have to act fast, though: The Hollywood Reporter is already forecasting the five most likely contenders for the role, and Glover is not on the list

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