Following a series of
disagreements between Sony Pictures and director, Sam Raimi, regarding the Spider-Man 4 screenplay, producers were
forced to cancel the project and announced plans to reboot the franchise with a
new director at the helm. Many prolific names were considered, including James
Cameron, David Fincher and Wes Anderson, however, it was (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb who Sony would eventually
confirm as director of the reboot. An extensive list of potential actors
emerged in a speculative few months regarding the new Peter Parker. Jamie Bell,
Aaron Johnston and even Zac Efron were all rumoured as possible suit-fillers,
but it was British actor, Andrew Garfield (The
Social Network), who was eventually announced as the new Spider-Man, alongside
Emma Stone as his love interest, Gwen Stacey, and Rhys Ifans as The Lizard. Unlike
Toby Maguire, who made it clear that Spider-Man was just a job, Garfield
is a lifelong fan of the Spider-Man comic books. During a Comic-Con panel
discussion for The Amazing Spider-Man,
the obviously humbled actor surprised fans with a heartfelt speech, explaining
why Spider-Man was so important to him. “I
needed Spidey in my life when I was a kid and he gave me hope. In every comic I
read, he was living out mine and every skinny boy’s fantasy of being stronger,
of being free of the body I was born into, and that swinging sensation of
flight.”
With the recent release of
exclusive footage, posters, photos and trailers online, anticipation is already
building for Webb’s The Amazing
Spider-Man, which is scheduled for release in early July. Early images of a
bloody and battered Garfield in
costume hinted at a darker tone and texture than Raimi’s installments,
silencing cynics who were afraid the reboot would model itself on the success
of the low-cost, high-grossing Twilight films.
“There are certainly darker, more intense
feelings in this movie,” comments Webb in a recent interview. “There is
betrayal, there is tragedy, but there’s also humour and romance. So it’s a very
complex bouquet of emotions.”
The trailer
offers a first-glimpse at the mechanical web-shooters which have prompted much dispute
online. The concept of organic web-shooters was devised by James Cameron in an
early Spider-Man draft in 1991 to avoid
explaining how a high school student could invent the web fluid required for
these complex devices. This decision was largely embraced by the comic book
community. The Amazing Spider-Man,
however, returns to the mechanical devices of the source material, a decision
which has yet to convert the more protective fans of Raimi’s original
installments.
It
is easy to forget that before audiences were first introduced to Maguire’s
Peter Parker, cynics and fanboys took to the internet to express anger and disappointment
at every decision the director made. Yet now, a decade later, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man stands as iconic and precious
as the comic books themselves. So let’s hope that in ten years from now Webb’s
superhero reboot reaches the same heights.
The Amazing Spider-Man is out
on the
4th July 2012
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