Adventures In The Spider-Verse Part 2

This post picks up right from where Part 1 left off. Here, we follow Spider-Man as he enters development hell, slinging from deal to deal between studios until he finds a home with Sony.

After acquiring the rights to our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, Cannon Films execs Menahem Golan, and his cousin Yoram Globus hired Tobe Hooper (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, POLTERGEIST) to direct. You see, Golan and Globus had never read the comic, and thought it would be a horror film like THE WOLF MAN. Marvel and co-creator Stan Lee hated their concept, Hooper left the project, and the producers went back to Spider-Man’s original premise.

I remember seeing this ad in Variety (I think) in 1986:

This reminds me of a scene in Tim Burton’s ED WOOD, in which filmmaker Wood (Johnny Depp) asks producer George Weiss: “Is there a script?” and Weiss answers “F***, no, But there’s a poster!”

There was also a trailer:

Cannon tried to keep the momentum going with a new Director, Joseph Zito (a few Chuck Norris flicks, one FRIDAY THE 13th sequel), and new screenwriters. They wanted Tom Cruise for the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man, but settled on actor/Stuntman Scott Leva. Leva had portrayed Spider-Man at Marvel events and in print ads, but the whole enterprise was derailed by budget cuts, and bad business dealings that had Cannon headed for bankruptcy.

SPIDER-MAN: THE MOVIE continued to be in development hell, as it was re-written and re-written as it went from studio to studio. In 1990, another company that’s no longer with us, Carolco Pictures obtained the rights, and set about making a big ass action film helmed by James Cameron, a hot property after the successes of THE TERMINATOR, ALIENS, and THE ABYSS. Not a lot is known about this attempted version, that Cameron co-scripted, but Arnold Schwarzenegger was discussed as a candidate to play Doctor Octopus, one of Spider-Man’s biggest adversaries.

Of course, this fell through too, and despite the many millions spent, the series of screenplays written, the studios’ efforts, and all the lawsuits, our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man’s tour in development hell continued. Finally MGM acquired the rights, but exchanged them with Columbia for the rights to the James Bond series.

That brings us to Spider-Man’s big cinematic comeback in Sam Raimi’s epic 2002 adaptation SPIDER-MAN, which was a huge hit. Tobey Maguire became the first live-action Spider-Man in nearly quarter of a century. But what’s now become a bit of trivia is that the film’s first trailer, the first look at the new Spider-Man caused controversy because it featured our hero building a web between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and was in heavy circulation in theaters when the tragedy of 9/11 occurred. Sony removed the trailer from theaters (you can find it on YouTube), and nixed a poster that also used WTC imagery.

I loved the newfangled SPIDER-MAN, and I remember thinking that I wished I could somehow send a copy of it to my six-year old self, because that kid would be blown away. It was the big-budget, star-studded, effects-driven epic that fans had waited a lifetime for.

SPIDER-MAN 2 was damn good too, with a great villain in Doctor Octopus (or Doc Ock), played by Alfred Molina. The special effects were even better than the first, as evidenced by its Academy Award win. Though it had its moments, the third entry was a bit of a comedown in quality. Sadly, it was the end of the Raimi/Maguire era of Spider-Man movies, and it would be five years until the franchise would be rebooted.

While I like Andrew Garfield, and am a big fan of Emma Stone, I wasn’t on board for 2012’s THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. It felt like the Maguire installments had ended unsatisfactorily, and it was too soon to redo the character’s origin story. Ditto for its 2014 sequel, which for the most part, I barely remember.

Although THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and its follow-up were box office smashes, its critical reception called for a new direction. Garfield was replaced by 19-year old British actor Tom Holland, whose Spider-Man made his debut in the Marvelverse in CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR. This was thanks to a rare deal between Sony and Marvel, that led to Holland appearing in two AVENGERS movies, and three solo Spider-Man films.

Following SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING and SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME, the third entry, SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME, may be fronted by Holland, but its real stars are his supporting cast. For this franchise does something that no other franchise has done before, it brings back two of the previous actors who starred in the role. Maguire and Garfield show up as the alternate versions from the multiverse of the character that we experienced in their movies. This concept was introduced in the 2018 animated adventure, SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE.

The summoning of past Spider-Mans isn’t the whole show, as seemingly every villain all three of our heroes fought in their films returns. There’s Doc Ock (Molina), The Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), Electro (Jamie Fox), Lizard (Rhys Ifans), and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), a roster of baddies that brings to mind the gathering of famous adversaries brought together in THE LAST ACTION HERO. 

NO WAY HOME could be seen as a sequel to Maguire’s trilogy, a follow-up to Garfield’s two film reign, as much as it is Holland’s third effort as Spider-Man, which will definitely not be his last as it’s the highest grossing movie of 2021.

The Spider-Man enterprise looks to be in good shape, maybe the best shape it’s been in since SPIDER-MAN 2 in 2004. The move to pay tribute to what’s come before is obviously fan-service, but it’s damn fine fan-service as it ties up some loose ends, particularly in Garfield’s case. The only thing that would make it better is if they had found a way to work Nicholas Hammond into it too. You know, for completist’s sake.

The takeaway here has got to be: You can never have too many Spider-Mans.

 

More later...

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2: Here We Go Again...Again

Now playing at a Marvelplex near you...

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2  
(Dir. Marc Webb, 2014)
 

I tried to go into this sequel to the re-boot with an open mind, but it wasn't easy as my enthusiasm for the Spider-Man franchise is at an all-time low these days. I so wasn't into Marc Webb's first entry 2 summers ago; I wrote on this very blog that it seemed "more like a reconfigured remake than a brand new beginning." Well, the sequel is more of the same as it matches a lot of story beats from Sam Raimi's SPIDER-MAN 2 from 10 years ago.

Andrew Garfield is back as the web-shooting super hero who is now haunted by the ghost of NYC Police Captain George Stacy (Denis Leary), who I forgot had died in the first one (shows how much it left my memory). A flashback reminds us that Garfield's Peter Parker had promised Leary's Stacy that he would leave his daughter Gwen (Emma Stone) "out of it," so after a late entrance at their graduation - Spider-Man had to chase down a Russian mobster (Paul Giamatti) who had hijacked a truck filled with tons of Oscorp plutonium, you see - our conflicted protagonist breaks up with the love of his life.

Meanwhile some half-assed villain origin stories are being set up concerning Peter's childhood friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), who we all know becomes the Green Goblin, and Jamie Foxx as a Oscorp maintenance man who has the bad luck to fall into a tank of genetically modified electric eels.

This happenstance turns Foxx into a blue glowing electric generator that engages in a Times Square-set battle with Spider-Man that's one of the better sequences. Unfortunately its more MAN OF STEEL than SUPERMAN II as there's loads of messy bombastic destruction that had to cause some deaths but you never see them. Instead they cut to a comical shot of Spidey wearing a fireman's helmet and holding a running hose while firefighters are laughing it up all around him.

The plot gets messier with DeHaan scheming to get a transfusion of Spider-Man's blood to fight off his growing illness, Stone considering going to study at Oxford, and Garfield trying to solve a mystery left behind by his late father (Campbell Scott) involving a briefcase and a secret lab. Garfield does this by constructing a Homeland-style cork board of documents, pictures, notecards, press clippings, string tying them all together, etc. I bet that's not far off from how screenwriters Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS) along with Jeff Pinkner (James Vanderbilt is also given a story credit) constructed the screenplay.

At an overstuffed 142 minutes, THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN is tiresome and uninspired franchise filler. There is some charming chemistry between Garfield and Stone, who are dating in real life, but the insipid dialogue they're given sabotages them on almost every line.

That's just one of many of the movie's problems. The humor feels off, Hans Zimmer's score is generically overwrought, Giamatti is too ridiculously over-the-top, the theme of Peter trying to sell the world (or at least his still unseen Editor J. Jonah Jameson) on Spider-Man being here to help is cheesily handled, Leary's ghost is a poor plot mechanism, Sally Field as Aunt May isn't given anything to do, and a major character getting killed (I'm not Spoiling who) doesn't have anywhere close to the emotional impact it's going for. Even the Stan Lee cameo falls flat.

One of the film's few plusses is its design, and ace cinematography by Daniel Mindel. But even with the effects advancing further forward, Webb's SPIDER-MAN is still toiling in the aesthetics of the Raimi/Tobey Maguire trilogy. It's like they are content to stand in those superior chapters' shadow, without any motivation to put their own distinct stamp on the classic comic book character.

Sony has unsurprisingly got SPIDER-MAN 3 and 4 already scheduled for 2016 and 2018 to fill the spaces between the more promising installments of the Marvel Universe (THE AVENGERS, IRON-MAN, CAPTAIN AMERICA, et al). This is really only good news to the diehard fanboys, because I bet the rest of us will think twice about ponying up for such subpar Spider-man entries like this one.

More later...