Spider-Man Film Discussion Thread

[BlueBard]

Bet you they'd never be able to get Alfred Molina back for another go...

[Figure Fan]

Electro seems likely, as does the Lizard. I don't know about this Vulturess thing..seems fake.

[TheMarvell]

at this point, would anyone here really be that surprised if the Vulturess rumor was actually true? Raimi's taken liberties with characters before, so why wouldn't he do the same here? He's more about making a cohesive story than being 100% faithful to the comic books. And for directing a movie, that's a good thing, as long as you don't butcher the story. Vuturess makes sense in that the two villains would be connected. But he doesn't have to make her Felicia Hardy, if true. Personally, I think Vulture is a pretty subpar choice for the next villain, and two of them doesn't make it any better. I don't like the idea at all, but at this point it seems like the most likely scenario.

I would have loved to see either Black Cat (Rachel McAdams) and Scorpion, or Lizard and Kraven (Mickey Rourke). But it does sound like they might gear up for a Sinister Six, which I don't really like since the movie wouldn't be able to keep up with all the characters. Oh well. I guess we'll find out the truth soon enough.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Recent reports are that the movie's been delayed and has already been replaced in the release schedule by Thor.  The reason is that, just like the third movie, Raimi and the suits are fighting over what villains to feature.  He wants The Vulture, who is apparently who he wanted with Sandman last time around.  They don't want Vulture, they want more romantic stuff and Black Cat.

I'm quite dissapointed that they haven't learned from the Venom fiasco to just let Raimi do his thing and not try to force a character on him that he doesn't like.  The results just aren't going to pretty.

[BentonGrey]

The Spider-Man movies are still outside of Marvel's hands, right?  You really would think that these people would learn from their mistakes, but they don't.  Spiderman 3 still made tons of money, and these movies and these characters mean nothing to them but money.

I think Vulture could be sorta' cool.  Hopefully he'd back him up with someone else.

[TheMarvell]

The Spider-Man movies are still outside of Marvel's hands, right?  You really would think that these people would learn from their mistakes, but they don't.  Spiderman 3 still made tons of money, and these movies and these characters mean nothing to them but money.

I think Vulture could be sorta' cool.  Hopefully he'd back him up with someone else.

you mean, like, Vulturess?

I don't know about this. If Raimi thinks he can make a better movie with Vulture, then let him do it. But to give the suits some credit (as much as I hate to) I really don't see Vulture being a very compelling villain to the broad, casual audience. An old man in a bird suit could be extremely difficult to pull off without looking silly. With the movie actually being delayed now, I really don't have high expectations.

[Previsionary]

Wellllll, I can do without more relationship drama involving a third/fourth party. At this point, MJ and Peter should be dealing with each other and the problems that come with that. We don't need a triangle in EVERY Spidey movie... that's not where his bad luck constantly plants itself. Also, it wouldn't hurt to give Peter a little more personality. Maybe have him actually joke around from time to time instead of being so serious and prone to emotional/dramatic scenes. Wishful thinking, I know.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

It's official, Spiderman 4's been canceled.  Raimi decided the suits just weren't going to listen and walked.  Toby went with him, and the execs have decided to reboot the franchise with a new high school student Peter Parker.

I don't mind reboots sometimes, but this I don't like.

http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2010/01/spider-man-film-gets-reboot-sam-raimi-tobey-maguire-out.html

[BentonGrey]

Idiots.  Well, that's it.  I won't be watching whatever junk they produce without Raimi and Maguire.  That's a shame, they could certainly have still made another great movie or two.  I love the Spidey movies, and it's a shame that the films that made superheroes popular again are coming to an end.

[crimsonquill]

At this point Sony might as well stick out their hand and become fast partners with Marvel Entertainment to bring Spider-Man into their Avengers franchise so they can pull some cameos into the reboot and tie it into the main storyline. Iron Man has been the best film to follow outside of Spider-Man 2 and with them tossing Raimi's vision they need ALL the help and big names they can get now.

I have no problems with a reboot if they can ditch the bad taste that Power Ranger Goblin and Spider-Venom gave me plus them finally finding the perfect actress for Mary Jane and she ended up playing Gwen Stacy. If they have to pull an Ultimate Spider-Man storyline just to fit Spidey into the combined universe that the Avengers films are kitting together then so be it. The quickest that Sony can regroup and then recast everyone would just push the limit to reach a 2011 release date anyway.. so why not join the bandwagon then use the cash machine that a deal with Disney/Marvel could stir up? Then work for a Winter 2012 release following Captain America and Avengers with Peter's new origin and then have him run into Iron Man or Captain America as a teaser for following his new storyline.

Let's just hold our collective breath and see what further reports unveil about happened.. and what they will do next.

[thalaw2]

I don't want no stinkin' reboot!  Not yet!  At least another 10 years down the pipeline or so.  I loved this last 3 Spidey movies.  3 wasn't great but it wasn't total crap...and that's probably due in large part to good directing

[BentonGrey]

I don't want no stinkin' reboot!  Not yet!  At least another 10 years down the pipeline or so.  I loved this last 3 Spidey movies.  3 wasn't great but it wasn't total crap...and that's probably due in large part to good directing

Precisely, I actually enjoyed Spider-Man 3 a lot!  It was a pretty flawed film, but it still captured something about Spider-Man.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I must admit, the one case in which I'd be okay with a reboot is if it meant Spiderman joined the current combined movieverse--but I don't see that happening, for an abundance of reasons.

[GogglesPizanno]

Between this and my house getting broken into, this has been one crappy day.
Besides, rebooting means we have to sit through yet another origin story....

I swear if they make Flash a bare chested werewolf who is competing for MJ's affections -- cause you know the power of tween movie dollars and the success of Twilight had a big hand in this decision.

And for the record I have been one of the few openly admitted lovers of Evil Peter from part 3!

[BentonGrey]

Aww man, sorry to hear that Goggles!

Cat, if they were to bring him in, in-so-much as sharing the same world, that would be cool....but as far as I'm concerned, Spidey simply doesn't belong in the Avengers.

[thalaw2]

Between this and my house getting broken into, this has been one crappy day.
Besides, rebooting means we have to sit through yet another origin story....

Exactly!  The origin story in Spidey 1 was perfect.  I don't need to live through it again.  One thing I liked about the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon is that they didn't make the audience sit through yet another spider-man origin story. 

[Podmark]

I'm disappointed but not completely upset. I enjoyed the first two Spider-Man films, and at least parts of the third, but I didn't love them. I didn't like Maguire much, he was too wimpy and lacked a certain spark. Dunst I didn't like at all, and I found the Mary Jane scenes to be kind of painful. I can enjoy romantic stories but there's did little for me. Peter losing his mask all the time drove me nuts, and Peter needed to quip.
I did like Harry, Doc Oct was excellent, and Jameson was fun. Like I said I enjoyed the movies but there were parts I thought could have been better.

I'd prefer they used the 90's Fox cartoon as their model, or if they need to go high school then Spectacular Spider-Man. Both were great shows.

[ubergreendragon]

  BAH

[Tomato]

meh... As much as I'd enjoy it if they made all the right decisions and gave us a great reboot without Dunst, this is Fox we're talking about. We'll be lucky if the new directer knows who Flash Thompson is.

Oh, and so help me, if I have to endure ANOTHER "Mary Jane falls off bridge and lives" scene(which goes against the entire point Stan Lee was making), I will be ending people

[crimsonquill]

meh... As much as I'd enjoy it if they made all the right decisions and gave us a great reboot without Dunst, this is Fox we're talking about. We'll be lucky if the new directer knows who Flash Thompson is.

Uhmm.. I think the ownership of which companies own what characters is getting kinda confusing here.

FOX has the rights to X-Men (and all mutant related spin-offs), Fantastic Four, and Daredevil. And outside of the first two X-Men movies with Singer they have had a horrible time understanding what a comic book really is besides a cash cow.

Columbia Pictures got the prize property of Spider-Man but Raimi started his battle with the suits in boardrooms from the start (the no-mask "face time" and their preference of the Goblin Ranger because it would be easier for toy makers to do was the tip of the iceberg) not to mension Danny Elfman ending his partnership with the director before Spider-Man 3 started. Columbia also picked up rights for Ghost Rider and The Punisher which didn't end up striking gold as much as their other franchise did.

Universal Pictures renewed their rights for Hulk but it took them two films before fans were happy with the results and they were smart in partnering up with Marvel Entertainment the second time around to work with Paramount Pictures on Iron Man and trying to merge all of the Avengers films together in one single universe.

Paramount/Marvel Productions has the ultimate deal with the Iron Man films leading the way followed by Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and finally The Avengers which all serve as Marvel's flagship titles.. especially now that Spider-Man is rebooting.

Both Raimi and Singer tried to have cameo appearances in their films but were shot down because it would involve too much money and shared rights. Even the Peter Parker walk on appearance in Incredible Hulk was elimated before production started because Toby was not allowed to do it at the last minute. It's funny that each independent studio wants to hold tight onto each Marvel franchise they own the rights to but forget that the big appeal for fans is that that Universe is a large part of crossing over into each other.

- CQ

[BlueBard]

Raimi was good the first couple of times around the block, but let's not make him out to be more than he is.  S-M3 was still a train wreck of a plot and he was the engineer at the wheel.  Sure, the producers probably dictated that Venom had to be in it... (marketing, marketing, marketing...).  But Raimi probably could have made a decent movie out of it if he'd tried to.  Instead we get 'emo Peter' and three major villains when two would have been stretching it more than a little.

I had hoped that S-M4 would have gone back to basics, but that's shot to blazes now.  It's too soon to reboot Spider-Man and they're going to have a really difficult time equaling the quality and sheer Spidey-ness of the first two movies Raimi did.  Visually, Raimi was spot-on every time.

Ugh.  It's like BND all over again.

[Talavar]

meh... As much as I'd enjoy it if they made all the right decisions and gave us a great reboot without Dunst, this is Fox we're talking about. We'll be lucky if the new directer knows who Flash Thompson is.

Oh, and so help me, if I have to endure ANOTHER "Mary Jane falls off bridge and lives" scene(which goes against the entire point Stan Lee was making), I will be ending people

Just to be clear - Stan Lee didn't write Gwen Stacy's death, he wasn't the editor of Spider-man at the time, and neither was he editor in chief at Marvel at the time.

[BentonGrey]

meh... As much as I'd enjoy it if they made all the right decisions and gave us a great reboot without Dunst, this is Fox we're talking about. We'll be lucky if the new directer knows who Flash Thompson is.

Oh, and so help me, if I have to endure ANOTHER "Mary Jane falls off bridge and lives" scene(which goes against the entire point Stan Lee was making), I will be ending people

Just to be clear - Stan Lee didn't write Gwen Stacy's death, he wasn't the editor of Spider-man at the time, and neither was he editor in chief at Marvel at the time.

Yeah, and it is one of the things that he regrets most about the history of Marvel. 

[Mr. Hamrick]

I'm almost going to breathe a sigh of relief here.  Well, a partial sigh at least.  I'm glad Toby McGuire is off the project.

Yes, he was great in the first two Spider-man movies.  He was okay in part three.

It doesn't change the fact that he is getting too old to be believable in the part.  He's 34 now and would be 35 by time production got underway at this point.  Yes, Spider-man aged in the comics a bit.  We've yet to see a Spider-man in his forties though.  And that's where it's heading with the amount of time it's taken to get a 4th film off the ground with a proposed 5th and 6th.

Having said that, I think Sony is making a huge mistake rushing a "reboot".  They need to just do a new movie.  No new origin story movie is needed.  We had that and it works.  I'd not mind seeing Sony drop Spiderman back to Marvel Films as well as Fox dropping Xmen back to them.

[Tomato]

I apologize for not having encyclopedic knowledge of what every writer has done with Spiderman. I assumed Lee had written it because Lee wrote a huge chunk of early Spiderman.

That being said though, regardless of how you feel about Gwen's death (Personally, I'm fine with it as-is.) it's irrelevant to my point... The entire point of the story is that sometimes, even if you do everything you can to save someone, sometimes it is just not enough. The shock of that failure is what makes that story so famous/infamous, the shock of Gwen dying, not just because of the Goblin, but possibly even because of Spiderman's own well-intentioned actions. And quite frankly it irritates me to see the story replayed with Mary Jane getting saved (And to be fair, the movie was neither the first or last... the 90s show did it, as did the Ultimate books) because it's like "look at us, we're doing this hugely popular scene that all the fans know about" without grasping the reason WHY it is such a core part of Spiderman's life.

That's my main thing... either don't do it at all, or do it right. Don't do this half-way "We're doing a famous scene to appeal to fans but there's no way we can actually kill her and still get a kid-friendly rating." nonsense with me.

[gengoro]

Money, money, money. Yeah I know its their job but god I hate movie execs.  Honestly they should just let the franchise be done with for now. Same with X-men. Just heading right into the ground.

[Haljack]

If they must do an origin, I'd prefer we have a incredible hulk-esque one where it's over by the opening credits.

[Podmark]

If they must do an origin, I'd prefer we have a incredible hulk-esque one where it's over by the opening credits.

Yeah I can't bear seeing the origin again.

[TheMarvell]

while I would have loved to see where Raimi would go with a 4th installment, at this point I'm a bit torn. John Malkovich would have been a great Vulture, despite my low expectations on how well of a villain Vulture actually is. But then the "Vulturess" rumor was most likely true, and then Raimi would probably have been scolded by even more fans who didn't like Spider-Man 3. In the end, though, I think I'd rather have Raimi still.

This reboot crap really needs to slow the hell down. They're practically rebooting every franchise at this point. It started with Batman (which is the only franchise right now that really needed it), then Hulk, now the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. These are all movies being rebooted in less than 10 years. And high school Spider-Man? With people gossiping about the Twilight guy (forgot his name) in the role? It's really clear what demographic they're aiming for with this reboot. The Raimi movies weren't perfect, but already this reboot is starting out on a bad note.

At this rate, they might as well start over with X-Men, Daredevil, and Ghost Rider while they're at it. Hell, why not another Hulk reboot? (are they even making a sequel to the Norton one?)

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Hulk my not get a full sequal, but they've said he'll be in the Avenger's movie.