It
seems, and by “seems” I mean “has been officially confirmed”
that Marvel and Sony have finally agreed to shared custody of the
Spider-Man film license.
When
I read the news the phrase that struck out to me was “Andrew
Garfield will likely be recast”. I did a bit of a double take at
that, to be honest, not because I'm particularly fond of his version
of Peter Parker but because it sounded harsher than they meant. I
mean, recasting Spider-Man I can understand, but to go so far as to
recast Andrew Garfield? That's just plain cruel, the lad doesn't
deserve that.
As
an unabashed Marvel Studios fanboy and a not being fond of the
Amazing Spider-Man reboot I'm looking forward to this. It seems the
deal is that Sony will continue to make solo Spider-Man projects and
Marvel will then use that Spider-Man in crossover projects.
There
were rumours a while back that Spider-Man would be the post-credits
teaser in Captain America: Civil War, so maybe that's on again.
Spider-Man turning up in an Avengers movie is a stone cold bonker
certainty just because of the amount of money that would make (an
amount of money that has been enough just in theory to make Sony not
want to lose the license).
Another
reboot, then, and in my own humble opinion I just want to put this
out there:
Do
we really need another origin? I'm not saying the Andrew Garfield
version should continue, that project is pretty much damned by its
own critical and financial failure, but that story's been told twice
in recent memory and it was hardly obscure to begin with. Uncle Ben
is almost as famous an origin as Krypton blowing up or the Waynes
being gunned down in the street. Spider-Man is one of the few
superheroes where the filmmakers can rely on the audience having a
genuine working knowledge of the character.
So
maybe this time let's just get on with things? Cover the origin in a
flashback or a montage and dive straight into the adventure. One of
the problems with Amazing Spider-Man 1 was the creators trying to
redo the origin in a way that was markedly different from Raimi's
Spider-Man, hence the incoherent speech Michael Sheen rambles his way
through instead of saying “With great power comes great
responsibility” and the painfully C-list villain.
Of
course, this could all go wrong. Marvel will have an exec on the Sony
projects so two studios that don't exactly have a history of getting
on will be working together closely, pursuing their own projects with
the same property simultaneously.
Maybe
this will finally be the moment when Marvel Studios finally
over-reaches itself. And I'd like to be clear: this prophecy of doom
isn't motivated by Sony's involvement, it isn't like I believe them
to be completely incapable, depending on my mood I credit them with
either two or three decent Spider-Man movies. Rather, I think that
what might sink Spider-Man 3.0 is what sunk Spider-Man 2.0 and even
the final instalment of Spider-Man 1.0: design by committee. Two
companies, two sets of execs reporting to two sets of bean-counters
on a multi-billion dollar property.
Maybe
tomorrow nothing will have been announced and I can get back to
whimsical fun about comics or sexual politics. I keep meaning to
write something about the sexual morals of Saved By The Bell (no,
seriously) but people will insist on announcing things, its most
inconvenient.
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