The Amazing Spider-man

Not-So-Amazing
by Reymundo Salao

The Amazing Spider-man is designed to be a reboot of the Spider-man franchise, to erase off and disregard the previous one. This should have been probably be expected to be a better take on the Spider-man franchise. Unfortunately, it's barely good, just a tiny bit above satisfactory. No; it's not a bad movie... It was just not good enough.

The movie has a vast playing field for nitpickers picking on little negative details of the movie; such as the lack of real motivation on the villain's part, or something as insignificant as Peter's distracting hair looking like a birdnest helmet. But aside from nitpicks, the film has several serious flaws.

Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, & the Lizard on the new Spider-man movie

Casting news for the new Spider-man (reboot) movie. Emma Stone is cast to play Gwen Stacy in the Spider-man reboot, which is kind of a dumb choice for the role because Emma Stone, with the kind of aura she evokes, is perfect for Mary Jane Watson, not only that; she's also a redhead, as Mary Jane is! Yes, many also share this opinion; and the producers should reconsider; Emma Stone would not look as cute as a blonde, and would also not probably work as a serious character such as Gwen Stacy (Spider-man geeks out there know the fate of Gwen). Emma Stone for Mary Jane Watson!

As for the villain, Rhys Ifans (Notting Hill, Little Nicky) will play Dr. Curt Connors, better known as The Lizard. There had been rumors across the blogosphere that Sony was thinking of bringing back Venom for the franchise reboot, but that character will not be featured in the movie.

Andrew Garfield stars as Peter Parker, while Emma Stone will play Gwen Stacy, who rivals Mary Jane Watson for Spidey's affection. Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin are producing the movie, which begins production in December. If you can recall, Dylan Baker played Connors in Sam Raimi's two "Spider-Man" sequels.

"Spider-Man" will hit theaters in 3D on July 3, 2012.

Here Comes the New Spider-man!

In an official twitter post from SONY PICTURES, the company revealed the actor who will become its next Spider-man. And his name is ANDREW GARFIELD. He has appeared in the TV series Red Riding and Boy A, he has also appeared in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and will be next seen in David Fincher's The Social Network, and in the adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

Let me give you a quick rundown of what happened with the Spider-man franchise in case you are not familiar with it; Director Sam Raimi and the producers had some creative differences and disagreements while they were developing Spider-man 4; Raimi (who has revealed some regrets and is displeased with the result of Spider-man 3) has already surrendered his creativity to its producers once and seems like he is not bound to make the same mistake. Eventually, the disagreement was not settled, and the result of that is Raimi is not part of the making of Spider-man 4.

In this light, Sony Pictures decided that they reboot the franchise and go back to the very beginning with a fresh start; new director, new cast, new series. One that goes back to Peter Parker's high school days. This should not be too much of a stray from the source material because when Spider-man first got his powers he was still indeed in High School. But this will surely displease other fans who feel that Sony might take it to a more of a "sell-out" approach (like this one other popular franchise that is drawing a strong fandom, particularly in the young adult demographic).

Me? I am just open to any possibilities; I was actually unhappy with Raimi's departure from the Spidey franchise, and unhappier with Sony's decision to reboot the series. But then it's new director Marc Webb is someone I am willing to trust fully coz I just loved his movie "500 Days of Summer"

Percy Jackson is Spider-man!

Percy Jackson star Logan Lerman has been cast as Peter Parker in the Spider-Man reboot/remake/reimagining/reinventing/redonkulous movie.

According to The Cinema Source, Percy Jackson star, Logan Lerman has been cast in the Sony reboot of the Spider-Man film series. Director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) is set to helm the first film in what is obviously a restart of the Spider-man franchise.

The story takes the characters back to high school in the New York City borough of Queens. No word yet on who has been cast as Peter Parker’s love interest Mary Jane Watson or any of the other characters in the Spider-man universe.

Webb of Spider-man?

(500) Days of Raimi Ends; (500) Days of Webb Begins

Sony Pictures and Marvel Entertainment have confirmed that Marc '(500) Days of Summer' Webb will direct the 2012 Spider-Man reboot. Written by James Vanderbilt, Webb will work closely with producers Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin in developing the project, which will begin production later this year.

To those who just caught up with the Spider-man news, here's a quick review: Spider-man director Sam Raimi (who obviously was unhappy about how the studios forced his creative hand in the making of "Spider-man 3" to do things he felt was not right) came into various clashes with the producers in the creative process of making "Spider-man 4" As a result, Raimi was fired and the producers decided to take the Spider-man series for a reboot. That means we have to go back to the start of the Spider-man story, but this time, they want a Spider-man series focused on the younger, more teen version of the story (possibly in order to target a "Twilight" demographic), and a director who can work well with the studio executives.

Now, it seems that they have chosen their slave..uhh ehem... I mean... director for the restart/reboot.
On the other hand, Marc Webb is really a great director. I personally freaking LOVED his movie (500) Days of Summer. In fact, I am relieved that Webb got the directorial job for Spider-man (rather than some hack like Bay or Ratner). But what I am upset about is that this is still going to be a reboot, this is going back to the high school days of Peter Parker, what we really want is for the Spider-man story to move forward, not needlessly remake a Spider-man origin story which is already brilliant to begin with.

I'm gonna sound mean, but I sure do hope that those executives be taught a lesson; I hope that by the time this reboot comes out, it will flop miserably. So miserable that they would wish they had not fired Raimi in the first place. Webb may be a great director, but with pushy executives like this, things may not be as what was originally intended. Just look at how stupid "X-men Origins: Wolverine" was.

Spider-man 4 & Raimi No More

Producers attempt to meddle in creative process ends in the firing of director Sam Raimi and rebooting Spider-man series

Bad news to Spider-man fans. The upcoming Spider-man 4 is scrapped, kicking out Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire, et al., and rebooting the series instead. EW reports that Sony wants “a more gritty, contemporary redo of the series,”

But this is Spider-man, not Daredevil or Batman, or the Punisher. You don't need a Spider-man movie to be dark to be good. In fact, forcing it to be dark and gritty may even possibly make this a bad movie.

EW also reports that Sony was always aiming to reboot the series in 2012 no matter what, but they did want one last outing with Raimi, Maguire, and co. According to Collider.com's Matt Goldberg, "this means that Sony just pushed up the timetable on setting up a crappy precedent where they don’t have to use over forty years of material from the comics, but can just keep redoing the series to suit the demographic with the most purchasing power at the time. That’s why when Sony means Peter Parker is going back to high-school, it means they’re skewing towards the Twilight crowd because they know the fanboys will nut up, take it, and then complain about it after they’ve already paid x-amount of dollars to see it (most likely in 3D; Sony hasn’t announced that for this new movie, but it’s a safe assumption they’ll jump on that bandwagon as well)."

In my opinion, what made the Spider-man movies successful was the masterful direction of Sam Raimi, who is a true fan of the Spider-man comics ever since his childhood. If you ask me, before Dark Knight came out, I had considered Spider-man 2 to be THE best superhero movie. But the third movie, Spider-man 3 was a critical failure because it was already there on that stage that the producers started to meddle with the creative process of making the movie; it was here when they began barking orders to Raimi to utilize their own ideas instead of Raimi's. It would be logically surmised that Raimi would not let this failure be repeated when they set out to make Spider-man 4. Now, the producers have fired him and want a new director they could easily bark orders to.

Spider-Man 4 delayed over script clashes

Sony & Sam Raimi have differing ideas for the film's villains
By Carl DiOrio and Borys Kit

The latest Spidey sequel is proving villainously difficult to plot out.

Sony and director Sam Raimi are at loggerheads over which direction to go with the villains for the latest installment -- an impasse which has prompted the studio to delay its scheduled spring production start and potentially to bump the pic from its May 6, 2011 release slot.

Raimi wants to have a criminal known as the Vulture act as the primary antagonist in the film while the studio, which dislikes the idea of the winged wrongdoer, is pushing for a romantic sub-plot involving a burglar named the Black Cat in addition to another villain.

A succession of writers has tried to marry the two parties' differing visions to no effect.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire ("Rabbit Hole") was hired in October 2008 to pen a key version of the screenplay, on top of the earlier version penned by James Vanderbilt ("Zodiac"). Last year, Sony brought in Gary Ross -- Oscar-nominated for his adapted script on 2003's "Seabiscuit" -- which he also helmed.

Alvin Sargent is penning the latest iteration.

Word of the Sony-Raimi conflict first surfaced mid-December on genre Web site IESB, but at the time Sony denied the report, saying tweaking of the script was "nothing unusual."

The differing views about the villain have their origins in the making of "Spider-Man 3."

Raimi, a fan of the wall-crawling super-hero since the character's 1960s debut, wanted to use classic villain Vulture in addition to Sandman, another classic creation, for that movie. The studio pushed him to use Venom, a character that was introduced in the late 1980s, because it thought that character, with its slick alien-symbiote origin, would lend itself to more effective marketing material and a way to attract "the kids."

"Spider-Man 3," while ensnaring $890 million in its worldwide web, turned out to be reviled by both the fanboy community and by many critics. In addition to a hefty paycheck, Raimi purportedly returned to helm the fourth installment in order to leave the series on a high note.

Production still could begin by this summer. While Sony insiders maintain the pic still could remain in its current release date, a shift to a date later in summer 2011 may be more likely considering the lack of a final script for the visual effects-driven project.

SOURCE: The Hollywood Reporter