Los Angeles — For what seems like the umpteenth time, Spider-Man is back on the big screen.

But this year, when Hollywood is under the microscope on the hot-button issue of diversity, the superhero is half-black and half-Latino.

Step aside, Peter Parker. There's a new Spidey in town. Hello, Miles Morales.

Miles as Spidey is not new to comic book enthusiasts, but he is new to theater-goers, who earlier this year embraced the long-awaited arrival of the Marvel universe's first black hero, Black Panther, on the silver screen.

"Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse," which hits US theaters on December 14, is a free-wheeling animated look at the multiple Spideys in parallel dimensions, including Spider-Ham (yes, a pig) and two women.

This time, an older Parker is a mentor to Miles, who is voiced by 23-year-old Shameik Moore, an Atlanta-born actor and singer with Jamaican roots.

Long before Moore landed the major role, he hoped he would get the chance to play Miles, he told AFP in an interview. He had even written about it in a journal given to him by a friend.

"One of the things I wrote in there very early on was, 'I am Spider-Man. I am Miles Morales,'" he said.

Moore first drew notice in the well-received indie film "Dope" in 2015. He says being chosen to play Morales is as rare as... being bitten by a radioactive spider.

"That spider chose him. However, many thousands of people live in Brooklyn... Sony chose me to play Miles Morales out of the hundreds of thousands of people that auditioned," he recounted. — AFP