Marc Webb made music videos, and then he made 500 Days of Summer, and then he made The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of that feature movie franchise. But when Sony Pictures boss Amy Pascal offered him the Spidey gig, he called it “the stupidest idea I ever heard,” Webb said today at SXSW in Austin.
In the report in Variety, Webb then claimed Pascal responded with a cool, “Honey, you can’t turn down Spider-Man.” And he didn’t, but this anecdote is nonetheless amusing because Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is kicking off this summer movie season in May, and he’s said before that he sees this one as the beginning of a new trilogy.
Yes, so Webb is probably doing at least four megabudget pictures as a result of this most stupid of ideas. That sure is something. That the reboot itself was kinda bad is something else, but at least this new one has a blue, glowing Jamie Foxx.
Amazing Spider-Man 2 still c/o Columbia Pictures
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62 responses to “Guy Who Rebooted Spider-Man Movies Thought It Was ‘The Stupidest Idea’”
“That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard”
“Here is a bunch of money”
“Ok, I’m in”
Hey, if Sony drove a dump truck of cash to my house, I’d sell out faster than Metallica.
Yeah, I would too, everyone has a price.
I’d write and direct a freaking Aquaman movie if somebody was willing to pay me for it. Seriously Aquaman because Batman’s fighting the Joker and Superman’s off rearranging the planets or something.
If I’m honest, I’d probably do it for a particularly tasty sandwich.
Zoidberg?
http://youtu.be/e3QRTToTLzI
“That the reboot itself was kinda bad is something else”…
Wait… Isn’t it widely considered to be a pretty decent film? How does Kotaku justify selling snide opinion as fact?
Very easily, haven’t you read their anime reviews?
So true… Gotta love their “top picks” for each season!
I thought the reboot was pretty bad. Guy has twilight hair, plus is a skater and a camera hipster, did you know he was also super smart? Oh also everyone dislikes him at school, you would think because hes such a huge tryhard? but no, it’s because he’s a “nerd”.
There were also a few times in the movie that just seemed to be disjointed, like a big scene had been taken out or some important pacing material etc.
Pretty much sounds like you just described how Peter Parkers been portrayed for the last 10 years or so…
As much as I loved Raimis Spiderman 2, Amazing Spiderman handled Spiderman himself in a far superior manner. He was a wisecracking smartass for one (Raimis one was hardly this), who seemed to actually websling and enjoy that aspect.
What Raimi DID do far better, was Uncle Bens death. Webb *really* dropped the ball bigtime here. Uncle Bens death had little to no impact in Webbs version, it was almost pitiful. Martin Sheen could’ve been a great uncle Ben, but his death was almost laughable.
The new movie is… okay but the whole reboot saga feels unnecessary. It’s clearly a political move by Sony to reboot the franchise so the rights don’t fall back into Marvel’s hands.
It’s also cute how they’re tip-toeing around the Raimi villains so we get The Lizard… a card-carrying member of the Spidey rogue’s gallery of “idealistic scientist who’s pushed into a corner and turns evil” along with Green Goblin, Doc Ock and now seemingly, Electro. The new Goblin looks godawful too.
The first Goblin, though they call him so far, the Green Goblin, isn’t the final ‘version’ of him. Norman Osborn will still become the Green Goblin in the 3rd movie, this is just Harry trying the prototype formula. This will lead into Norman going apeshit and trying to kill Spiderman.
But I do agree, he looks *bloody awful*.
The reboot of the saga does feel unnecessary to a degree, but they wanted a series they could create a ‘universe’ around. Raimi had already killed off a number of villains and the critical panning Spiderman 3 had taken, led to part 4 with the Vulture and ‘The vultress’ *ugh* being shitcanned.
Personally I’m glad they went the way they did, Raimi was losing control of the series since part 3 when Sony forced him to include Venom, hence the terrible version we got, even Raimi acknowledged Venom was shoehorned into the movie ruining the quality of the movie compared to part 2. With Sony keeping on interfering with the movie, part 4 at that rate would’ve ended up abysmal.
Yeah, well, Raimi wasn’t happy with how things went with 3 and knew that 4 would probably be worse so he understandable walked away, and the cast went with him.
I didn’t really like the reboot much either, too much Ultimate Universe in all of these movies, Oscorp being tied to or responsible for pretty much everything in the Spidey universe is just too neat and bothers me, and Lizard looked dumb.
Still, it’s gotta be better than Emo Venom. I really feel for Raimi, being forced to do all that shit. The Sandman arc was fantastic. Loved that part of the movie, but every time Venom was onscreen it was *painful*.
I really never read any of the comics and still don’t really because its an expensive hobby but i remember seeing pictures of venom and shit from snippets and he looked so badass and when i heard that spider man was gonna have venom there i was all like SWEET and all in all just a big letdown.
/breathless paragraph
Yeah, the Sandman parts were done really well, I can only imagine Raimi’s heart breaking with every Venom scene being shot.
@neon_jackal yeah he said the script was originally going to include Sandman and Vulture I believe. But Avi Arad, head of the studio back then, stepped in and said ‘The fans want venom, the fans get venom.’ Ignoring the fact Sam had crafted mastefully, two incredibly good movies up til that point. (Power ranger inspired Goblin asides…)
My greatest heartbreak from the original movie is this, this was meant to be the Goblins original look:
I have no idea why they didn’t go with it honestly, I think it looks amazing personally. But, ultimately it does come down to performance and Willem Dafoe does stand head and shoulders above 99% of most other actors in his deliveries, and even behind that terrible outfit, he gave a brilliant performance as the broken Norman Osborn.
My main problem like you, with Webbs version, was Lizard looks like *shit*. Lizard should have had a straight up lizard like head, some sort of Goanna/Monitor lizard looking one with gigantic teeth. Not the man looking hybrid he was. He looked terrible in the facial region. His body was cool, his tail was awesome but his head was a total letdown. But I loved Garfields Spiderman, he was superior to Tobey Maguires every and any day of the week. Peter Parker himself, Tobey Maguire nailed it better than Garfield did, not a single doubt.
If you could combine the two, Maguires Parker, and Garfields Spiderman, you’d have the pinnacle performance of Spiderman on screen I think. But I do look forward to ASM3, when we get what looks like the Sinister Six on film 😀
Yeah, that Goblin mask is amazing, I think Raimi didn’t think it would be as believable, maybe too crazy for audiences to take in, much like the mechanical web-shooters. You have to remember, Superhero movies weren’t really a thing yet and no one knew what would be too much.
The Lizard was a joke, this is The Lizard, this is what he should’ve looked like http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/5/50099/1460718-lizard.jpg
I’m not really that keen on Venom or the Sinister Six appearing, one thing I really hate about all the Ultimate stuff these films are heavily inspired by is how Oscorp is responsible for everything, the radioactive spider, Venom, all the other baddies. Takes away the “normal kid gets powers” and turns it into “He’s the chosen one”. That and Harry Goblin looks hilariously bad as well.
@Neon_Jackal Yeah I love that artwork. Here’s some earlier apparent concept work of what they were going to have the Lizard look like:
http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/31500000/Original-Lizard-Design-1-the-amazing-spider-man-2012-31598516-1280-1044.jpg
This pisses me off. Because the head there, is fantastic. It’s got the proper reptilian mouth, the half way human/reptilian head, yet it’s still fantastically merged and looks menacing in its own right. If they REALLY wanted a human looking lizard, imho that’s where they should’ve gone. Not that human looking shit…
Oh yeah, that would’ve been heaps better.
Also, the other thing(unless I’m remembering the film wrong since I haven’t watched it since it came out), They kind of missed the mark with the character anyway, I don’t remember the Lizard being very smart or chatty in comics, and I don’t remember Conners being that much of a dick.
Given how creatively-bankrupt and political the conception of these new Spider-Man movies are, I would not care if they retread a whole bunch of Raimi villains if it meant us being spared weak-ass villains like Electro or even Rhino. What’s next, Beetle? If Sony’s going to follow through with their boast of an annualised Spider-Man franchise, then Just go whole hog and redo Venom, you might actually do us a favour by erasing memories of Topher Grace. That’ll be a good way to transition into a Carnage movie.
They are redoing Venom, he’s getting his own movie. Electros never been a weak character? Rhinos never been either, though he’s always been more of a henchman. I don’t actually get where you’re coming from with that?
Personally, for Venom? I’d love to see them go the Flash Thomson route. I’m loving that arc in the comics with the special forces aspect. But I seriously doubt they will.
Unfortunately you’re not likely to get a Carnage movie, but you’ll probably get him as a badguy at some point, or some watered down version of him.
I haven’t got around to watching the rebooted Spidey yet (too lazy!), but Sony has to keep pumping our Spidey movies. Sony loses the Spidey licence if they don’t use it for a set number of years and the licence reverts back to Disney. Similarly with Fantastic Four and X-Men/Wolverine – Fox loses the licence to Disney if they don’t use the licence for a set number of years.
Pity that Sony/Disney/Fox can’t work together to make huge $$$s together.
Indeed. Oscorp tower was meant to be in the Avengers, but some deal fell through at the last moment meaning that it never appeared 🙁
http://www.firstshowing.net/2012/amazing-spider-man-almost-tied-into-avengers-and-now-venom/
“Pity that Sony/Disney/Fox can’t work together to make huge $$$s together.”
Yeah, this is what I don’t get.
An amalgamated universe is what everyone wants and theres no reason the three companies cant come to some arrangement. After all, its all about the money for them. Joining forces would pull in mega $$$ for the.
But, then again, it would be a decade+ of lawyer disputed agreements before anything eventuated.
Look at Quicksilver.
Hes his ‘true’ character in X-Men: DoFP, but in The Avengers 2 hes not allowed to be Magnetos son and he cant be referred to as mutant. In fact, no mutants in the Avengers franchise. Fox owns mutants.
On another note. . .
It took Marvel to create a great quality Avengers movie franchise to get Sony and Fox to get their shit together and make some quality products with their franchises. Otherwise all we would get is half baked crap churned out by Sony and Fox purely as a means to hold on to the franchise licenses.
Disney/Marvel has tried to get back as many franchises as possible since the merger. Disney wants to use Spider-Man and X-Men in the Avengers movie series but the contacts that Sony/Fox have are pretty stupid in design. It was once stated that the main reason Sony rebooted Spider-Man was to keep the rights since it stated in the contracts that if they do not use the license within X amount of years it reverts back to Marvel.
Yep they’re slowly buying them back. I believe they bought back Silver Surfer and Galactus recently. They also got back Daredevil thank god. No idea if they own Kingpin yet?
I’d assume having Daredevil back opens up Kingpin for them(since that was his first appearance and he is a big enemy for him)
They got Ghost Rider back too.
@warcroft oh thank god… thank GOD… maybe someone can do Ghostrider properly now lol
In some ways, the best possible outcome for Disney would be for the Sony/Fox/Paramount Marvel franchises to bomb so the respective studios stop making films and the rights revert.
Instead, cross overs are likely to increase the value of those franchises. So Disney would probably want something in return. That might be a shortening of the license, or higher royalties (if they can push them up high enough, perhaps the films will become uneconomical).
What would be interesting is if the licenses the non-Disney studios have allow them to do cross overs with each other. For instance, could they put Spider Man in a Fantastic Four film? Or Franklin Richards in an X-Men film?
Well Fox owns both X-men and Fantastic Four, and have made mention they plan to have those two properties exist in a shared universe, though, I’ve never really known the FF and X-men to really have that much to do with each other.
For some reason I thought Fantastic Four was with a different studio. As far as FF/X-Men cross over potential, Franklin Richards (the child of Reed Richards and Sue Storm) is a mutant with the ability to manipulate reality and telepathy/telekinesis. So there has been some cross over in the comics over the years.
(This reply system sucks)
Yeah, I’m aware Franklin is a mutant, but I’ve never really read or seen any stories that featured any big interaction between the two camps. Also, since the upcoming FF reboot has cast some very young actors and seems to be heavily inspired by Ultimate FF, we may never even see Franklin or Valeria at all, which would suck.
The death of Uncle Ben is such an iconic moment. I’d say neither movie pulled it off that well unfortunately… :/
Uncle Ben died while waiting for Peter in Raimis. Peters selfishness led directly to his death. His death was tragic and impacted Peter directly. In Webbs tho Sheen made a good Uncle Ben, his death almost seemed like a confusing mess. Like they didnt know how to handle it.
I think it was more in Maguire’s reaction that bothered me. His crying almost looks like awkward laughter. I agree though, Webb’s Ben death was neither here nor there.
Yeah definitely. Maguire never really pulled that scene off, but to be honest, Garfield did. That’s why it’s kind of weird. If you were able to mash the movies up succesfully, you’d have the perfect Spiderman film?
Yeah I’d say so. It’s a shame that neither film pulled off the Uncle Ben moment. It would have given the films an emotional core that they could revisit to remind Peter of his tasks ahead. Look how well Alfred is utilised in the Batman films of recent.
I’m digging the obvious move away from the gritty Dark Knight movement that took over films though.
@zico indeed. I’m actually looking forward to Affleck as Batman. They’ve said they’re definitely not trying to copy the Nolan look or feel, they’re going for the comic Batman. Kevin Smith (who himself has written some great Batman stories) had this to say about it:
He’s got zero vested interest in the movie himself, so I’m ready to believe him when he says it looks great. I personally liked Man of Steel, it had many faults, but it laid solid groundwork. That’s exactly how I felt about Amazing Spiderman. It had *many* faults, but it laid some solid groundwork for a superior sequel to come along. Here’s hoping.
Tobey Macguire’s portray always bothered me. He was overly wimpy, a total loser (not so much a brainiac initially shy outcast nor did he ever overcome that unlike the comics) which seemingly didn’t change throughout the entire trilogy (in the comics he certainly goes through changes) and could never pull of a convincing Spider-Man voice IMO – which is easily the worst part for me.
Meanwhile, aside from little things (mostly attributed to the film perhaps and not THAT big of a deal) I found Andrew Garfield to be far better. That “wisecracking smartass” part was sorely missing in the initial trilogy and it’s very much an important part of Spider-Man in the first place (he’s quick witted like that and at various times, usually uses it to his advantage).
I do prefer Raimi’s May and Ben Parker or indeed how they were handled, but on the other hand I didn’t care much for Raimi’s/Kirsten Dunst’s Mary Jane (who I felt was too gloomy even the by the characters usual standards – she has a gloomier side but is also over the top in trying to appear happy) nor Gwen (or the entire 3rd film for that matter) and was perfectly fine with this Gwen Stacey instead.
I’ll just add that, as far as it being an actual reboot goes: it’s unnecessary to go through the high school part again (or to at least have limited it). Not a fan of movies having do more “origin” stuff than they have to, but on the other hand given how different the 2 Peter Parkers are and it being Gwen and no MJ, I can’t say it was necessarily a “bad decision” to simply establish it as a different set of movies. Otherwise if it’s just treated as a sequel it’d either have felt a bit rough in regards to some of those changes OR they would have retained stuff (the part I was personally grateful for most at least was them actually changing Peter Parker. Hell, maybe this time there’s still chance for an actual better Venom (or even Carnage), something which I still really want to see.
Technically yes, you could describe both versions with those words, but I think there are a lot of moments at the start that go against the spirit of the character that leave a bad aftertaste for the rest of the movie. Peter Parker is a good kid but he’s not a hero. He’s smart and quick witted but he’s not confident. Early on in the movie there are a lot of moments where he goes against that. He’s over confident and easily the coolest kid in the movie (even before he has powers). As Peter he openly flaunts that he has super powers. He gets the girl right away.
If you can get past that without really dwelling on it the rest of the movie is pretty good, and for a lot of people that’s easy because Garfield and Stone are great together, but once you notice that any time they try and establish him as a nerd they follow it up almost instantly with ‘but he’s totally into this alternative stuff that makes him even cooler’ it really makes the character a lot less likable and drags the entire movie down.
I can reluctantly get behind changing him, the old school nerdy Peter Parker is getting to be as dated as Clark Kent, but he can’t be perfectly flawed. It strips the soul right out of the character and worse makes it hard to relate to.
Agreed 100% My biggest peeve was the fact he pulls off all those stunts as Peter Parker and no one asks questions? Swings around without a mask in full view of the city’s CCTV and no one says nothing?
I think the old peter parker was more believable as a character. Now I’ve seen the trailer for number 2 of this has this rediculous looking guy called “electro”… lols…
Obviously I don’t read the comics, but I know that a lot of superheros have stupid villians and etc, the obvious thing to do though is to not pick the stupid lame ones and put them into a movie.
Electro, Rhino and Green Goblin (Who’s really more a proto-goblin)… hardly a bad trio to go with. Electro looks exactly how he does in the Ultimate series, as does Rhino more or less (sort of). Don’t know what crack they were smoking though with the Goblin…
I thought it was better than the rubbish kiddie ones before it.
@zico: I was thinking the same thing. I actually thought the reboot was better than all 3 of the “original” films. I like this less-whimpy (less-emo) Spider-man a lot better and the whole Mary Jane saga is over. FINALLY.
Yeah man. I hate starting with sentences like “as a… *insert self righteous perspective*”, but having read Amazing Spider Man comics religiously as a child, I find Webb’s version far more in line with the ‘fun’ aspects of Spider Man, without losing the serious undertones. The new version breaks away from the gritty colours of other Marvel/DC films and actually looks like it has colours that pop, making it look like a genuine comic-book film. Seeing some close resemblance to Mark Bagley’s work in the costume design.
It was a made by committee mess. It made a lot of money, but it was pretty much hollow and soulless.
It got really mixed reviews across the board, just squeaking by into the “positive” column on IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, and Metacritic.
Kotaku is a blog, so opinions come with the territory. Although I think the general consensus is the movie was rather good. It had issues sure, but with 100% less Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, it’s 100% more likable.
What reboot? The last Spider-Man film was Spider-Man 2 in 2004.
Wait what? That’s Jamie Foxx?
That is Jamie Foxx as Electro… Tbh, not a bad redition. Seems more like the early Ultimate Universe version
They probably should’ve just called these films Ultimate Spider-man.
I think it’s funny that this guy’s last name is Webb
It’s the sole reason they chose the guy.
I wish Sony would stop doing Spiderman movies so that the license would revert back to Marvel/Disney.
It feels odd to say this, but Amazing Spiderman made me nostalgic for the Ted Raimi movies, emo Peter Parker and all. I felt it was just that divorced from Spiderman in the comics, and I hate the sub plots, and I think that Andrew Garfield, while a good guy in real life and a decent actor, is delivering a performance of some guy named who just happens to be named Peter Parker, instead of anything that resembles our favourite comic book hero’s secret identity.
So long as Sony holds onto the Spidey license they are going to release a new reboot of Spiderman every “X” number of years like clockwork to keep the cash coming in and to prevent Marvel from getting the license back. I don’t know how many big budget Spiderman movies I want to see which are essentially retellings of the origin story, but with a different “edgy take” on Peter Parker. Peter Parker is a nerdy, kinda nice, pretty normal sort of guy. He doesn’t need to be re-invented every 5 years to justify a new movie, but that’s what’s going to happen until this license reverts back to Marvel.