As you can tell from this earlier post, the Reverend and I have already waxed poetically about our feelings on the re-boot of the Spider-Man film franchise, after seeing it on Sunday night at the L.A Times Hero Complex screening. Also present? The film’s director Marc Webb. While we certainly alluded to his presence and touched upon some of the things he mentioned in the Q&A following the screening of the film, let us now take a closer look at the conversation with the man behind the Spider-Man.
When news of a reboot of Spider-Man first fell upon our blessed congregation, sinners and saints alike were skeptical. After all, it’s barely been five years since the demise of the Sam Raimi films, and while the final installment was admittedly tragic, the other two were actually pretty good! That coupled with initial images invoking shades of a new show on the CW and this CollegeHumor video resulted in a less than stellar first impression.
Something director Marc Webb was definitely aware of going into directing the film.
“It’s an interesting issue,” he admits, “because there was a lot of skepticism about rebooting a movie so quickly and there was a lot of thought that went into how to do that exactly.” Webb says he tried to focus on how he perceived Spider-Man from the ground up; to portray the superhero with a very different inflection than not only in the Raimi films, but comics, cartoons, video games and bizarre imports from foreign nations. “I went back and I thought about the comics and there’s fifty years. It’s not a closed canon . . . there’s so many tellings and retellings of the story.”
Though Webb is fascinated by and chose to include both the Gwen Stacy and the Lizard story arcs, his biggest focus was Peter Parker’s parents. “That was how I entered the whole story was thinking like ‘who is this kid?’ . . . Anybody who gets left behind by parents when they’re six or seven years old, that’s gonna have a huge emotional consequence.” Webb used that moment as the jumping off point both for the character and the story he wanted to tell, especially reflected in that chaotic moment wherein Peter’s parents abandon the future web-slinger.
Although, for better or for worse, the secretive ‘rents do leave him in the more than capable hands of Sally Field’s Aunt May — talk about a solid mom figure! — that gives birth to the quippy, sarcastic attitude present in the Spider-Man most of us adore.
This attitude manifests itself much more in Peter Parker himself than we are accustomed to; it’s written closer to the American Eagle everyman than T.J.Maxx underdog (see comment about “hipster Spider-Man”), primarily the result of stellar chemistry between him (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy, played by the always hilarious Emma Stone. “Casting them was the single most important thing in the entire process,” Webb admitted — as many good directors would.
Once Sony booked The Social Network‘s Andrew Garfield, an intense classically trained actor who seemlessly — and brilliantly — juggles the various demands of being both Peter Parker and Spider-Man (probably better than Peter juggles being Peter and Spider-Man – pull it together dude! You’re a fictional character!), the search was then on for Gwen Stacy. And who better to balance out Garfield’s studious, methodical ways than Emma Stone, who’s training is primarily improvisational comedy. When screen-tested, Webb said Stone’s hire was pretty obvious “because she’s so funny, but she brought the humor out of Andrew as well and made him, I think, more confident in that.”
Considering Webb’s only other film credit is the offbeat romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer (by Moody’s equation that’s I Know What You Did Last Summer minus “I Know What Did Last” plus Zack Snyder’s 300 plus the number 200…eh?), it’s not surprising the director is so capable of spotting great chemistry. At the core of The Amazing Spider-Man is a very real, sweet and trusting relationship between two young people falling in love for the first time. Gwen Stacy actually falls for Peter Parker, not Spider-Man, which led Webb to make the somewhat controversial decision to have Peter reveal his alter ego to Gwen at the onset of their relationship.
“I understand there’s an objection to (the early reveal) because it may alleviate or reduce some dramatic tension; but the relationship was very important, (particularly) about what it meant to be a teenager and fall in love for the first time and that notion of revealing yourself to someone. When you’re falling in love for the first time you open yourself up. And what’s so thrilling and terrifying about it, is you let people into your vulnerabilities and your secrets. It was crucial for me that they be confidants and honest with each other.” Webb says he doesn’t think Peter has experienced the consequences of revealing his secret identity yet at this point, so, realistically, that’s a secret he would want to share with his girlfriend.
Plus, Gwen Stacy is one smart cookie and would have figured it out anyway. Now if only Lois Lane could borrow a few of her brain cells….*
*Disclaimer: I do not have a personal vendetta against…
One final highlight from the Q&A: Webb says he was very careful to keep the camera angles largely from the protaganist perspective because audiences will feel more connected to a character when they are subject only to their limited point of view: “[In] Space Invaders, it’s a plate map . . . everything you see in the game is playing right there on the screen in front of you . . . then along comes Mario Brothers and the camera, the world gets smaller. You just see that character and the plate that they’re playing is actually quite similar. You just reduce what the viewer can see and they actually become closer to that protagonist, to the character that you’re playing, and you’re less aware of the world around you. When they did that, the sales of video games went through the roof.”
Was it that, or do we just feel closer to Mario because we actually could see what he looked like? I am pretty sure a bunch of people felt a whole lot closer to Samus Aran once they saw the blonde babe underneath all the bad ass robot armor.
And hopefully Webb’ll be smart enough to keep his newfound “blonde” babe Emma in the limelight for another couple films.
NO MENTION OF ME AGAIN!!!!!!!!!???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahhhh all these writeups make me wonder why I haven’t seen this yet! THATS IT i’m going now lol
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No.
Go see it! It’s pretty fun.
You are a doll, Emma!
My only complaint (and sorry this is just me being rather fidgety) is that neither of the site’s articles on A.S.M. comment on Rhys Ifans’ performance. How would you compare him to the other villains of Spiderman movie past?
Otherwise, yay, awesome job. Loving this site!
Confession: I have not watched any of the Raimi films in YEARS. I think at this point I have forgotten how much I enjoyed the first two and I need to revisit them…
As to Rhys Ifans as the Lizard/Curt Connors, I think he was really fantastic. The way they integrated his character into Peter’s backstory was clever, and gave Peter new motivation to go snooping around a science lab. And you totally buy Connors as a human being and kinda get why he behaves villainously – he really has the best intentions but become blindsided by the newfound powers associated with mutation.
He did a great job! Sure, it got a little hammy when he was discovering himself as the Lizard but I’d say it’s a clean second to Doc Ock from SM2
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I still would like to see Spider-Man as an Avenger and see how he incorporates himself into the Marvel Universe.
Since ASM is only Webb’s 2nd film I wonder what else he’ll take next? And yes I know it’ll be Spiderman 2 and 3…but still 🙂