Figures this would come when I’m trying to get some pre-flight sleep…
Whatever. British actor Andrew Garfield, best (only?) known to moviegoers as Anton in “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” is Sony and director Marc Webb’s choice to play the hip, happenin’ new Peter Parker in their fast-tracked, quick-n-cheap reboot of “Spider-Man.” For those who haven’t been keeping track, the new film will rewind the story back to High School and rework it into a “Twilight”-style teen romance soap.
This is unfortunate, since Garfield has struck me as a pretty good actor so far – in other words, not deserving of being associated with this pending atrocity – but also somewhat depressingly-funny in at least one sense: On the “celebrity scene,” Garfield was at one point best known for being frequently mistaken for another actor…
…named Robert Pattinson.
In other news, it continues to be sincerely hoped that everyone for whom Tobey Maguire doing a silly dance for about a minute in “Spider-Man 3” was the worst thing that ever happened in the history of anything!!!!! continues to be really, really thrilled.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
(sigh) Sad thing is this “reboot” of the spider-man franchise will make it and there will be sequels just because it's Spider-man.
It's just too bad it had to go down like this.
I was really hoping that they would be able to bounce back from Spider-man 3 which was terrible, but not nearly as terrible as what's to come.
Sad times are upon us.
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I'm sad now.
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@leoja92
There there, we are all sad now.
Bad things are in the future for Spider-man, but there is a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel in the form of Captain America.
RIP Spidey.
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Hopefully that Nathan Fillion as Hank Pym rumor has legs to it. That would make you happy, right sir? Captain Mal? Working with Joss again? Wel how about Eva Longoria as Wasp? That work for you?
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As long as I get a scene of Mary Jane and Harry Osborne making an omelet as the result of a really stupid and contrived amnesia subplot that had absolutely NOTHING to do with the rest of the story (what little coherent there was) as well as at least 3 villains, non of whom had any compelling motivation for doing any of the completely uninteresting stuff that they did, then I will be a happy man! Oh, and also more annoying Peter Parker narration, more shallow words of wisdom from Aunt May which do nothing to actually help the characters, more stilted acting, more bad dialogue, more poor pacing, a longer run time but even less fight scenes, weak special effects, multiple plot lines that don't go anywhere, and long protracted scene that do not advance the plot or characters. Yes! If it had all of that, THAT would be the perfect Spider-Man film! I mean, seriously, why haven't they done any of that before???
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“To Become Most-Hated Man In Movie-Geek Universe!”
I laughed. Bob thinks his opinion is in the majority.
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Oh please. Bob is one of those super elitist nerds, and thats why we love him.
As for Spiderman the REBOOT… I'm looking forward to it. Why? Because it will surly be a good way to blow two hours on some hot summer day. Lots of effects, lots of dizzy camera work… Blockbuster.
I like Spiderman, but I'm not a super anal comic book geek thats going to whine and bitch about every little bit that diverts from the million and one comic books out there. Big effing deal.
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Oh please. Bob is one of those super elitist nerds, and thats why we love him.
As for Spiderman the REBOOT… I'm looking forward to it. Why? Because it will surly be a good way to blow two hours on some hot summer day. Lots of effects, lots of dizzy camera work… Blockbuster.
I like Spiderman, but I'm not a super anal comic book geek thats going to whine and bitch about every little bit that diverts from the million and one comic books out there. Big effing deal.
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And once again Hollywood is showing us that they are total idiots. Hopefully the Avengers doesn't destroy Marvel's credibility, though the flaws in Iron Man 2 were worrisome.
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Robert Downey Jr. brought on the guy who wrote Tropic Thunder to do Iron Man 2. And when you have only one screen writer whose work includes…Tropic Thunder, you knew there were going to be problems. Nicholas Meyer this guy is not. And he fucked up the story all kinds of ways. It took like four people to craft the first story.
And Spider-man 3 chomped balls. It's pretty damn sad when a crappy low-budget cartoon of Spider-man handled the symbiont story better.
And Chris Evans is going to be Captain America, which is going to suck as bad as Chris Pine playing Captain Kirk.
Our only hope is Christopher Nolan and bringing some awesome back into the world of Superman. And to keep Robin the fuck out of the next Batman movie, because he was only ever a cheap ploy to try to get more kids reading the comics.
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Actually Bob, I knew of Garfield from Doctor Who and Boy A. No idea he was in Imaginarium. I have more knowledge than the average movie going public! 🙂
Spider-Man Reboot: I don't know why, but I never really 'clicked' with the old Spider-Man's. Maybe it's because I was young at the time or because I watched them again a few years ago after Dark Knight, Batman Begins and Watchmen had shaped my movie views. They're perfectly good Spider-Man movies, but I'm not really against a reboot. If it's terrible, it's terrible. If it's good, it's good.
Quick question Bob: What's your view on the fact that there may be a Watchmen 2? I'm against it far more than I am this.
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Unfortunate news for Spidey fans. There's plenty else to look forward to, though.
Being one of the (apparent) few that liked Spider-Man 3, I can't say I'm entirely unhappy with the idea of a new Spider-Man franchise (though, not necessarily this one). For example, Kirsten Dunst was an okay Mary Jane, but she always seemed like the weakest link in the Peter-MJ-Harry chain to me. If Spider-Man's film incarnation can recover from this high school reboot, I wouldn't mind seeing Hollywood try to fix the problems with the Maguire era.
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Why are you raging out over the reboot this early?
Sure, it may attempt the Twilight superpower/teen drama angle, but that's only speculation, nothing is really pointing towards it!
I'm not saying I think it's gonna be great, but it's silly to start bashing it when we really don't know that much about it ^^
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First, a potato is more knowledgeable than the average moviegoer, or else we wouldn't have to put up with all the mindless, formulated, dreck that floods into theaters every summer.
Second, I actually just watched Spiderman 3 yesterday, and it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Yes, it's crammed full of unneeded elements. Yes, the action is sparse and the effects are a step backwards. However, if you turn it inside out- think of it as a romantic drama with spurts of comic-book action- it's a very watchable movie.
Thrid, I don't care what they do with the reboot, I won't be seeing it. Sam Raimi proved (twice, in fact) that it is possible to make a faithful, artistic, comic book adaptaion that is also commercially viable. For Sony (or any other studio) to go back to making watered down, focus-grouped movies to capitalize on popular trends is an artistic crime, and I won't support it one bit.
I'm not saying it won't work, just that it's wrong.
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I think it's a little too early to rush out and say that Andrew Garfield will become hated for playing Spiderman – for all we know, he'll be like Heath Ledger (somewhat) and do a better job than anybody would have expected. Not Oscar material, certainly, but he'll get the job done.
My problem with the movie lies more in the principle, that the studio decided to force their vision down the director's throat for one movie, and then when he refused to let the same thing happen in the next movie they kicked him out, got a director to act on their whim, and are basically constructing a blockbuster based on what other blockbusters look and feel like, which is most certainly what I see happening right now.
In other superhero movie-cast related news, has anybody heard Robin Williams's interest in playing the Riddler in the third Nolan-directed Batman? There's no confirmation, but what does Bob and everybody else think of that? I'm still not sure what to think, myself.
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You keep bringing up this OMG PETER WAS DANCING thing like people are bing stupid about it. It's not that he was dancing. It's that he silly danced and that was him being “dark” and the set up his “redemption” for later in the film. A nd it FAILS on this level. It's not jsut that it's silly dancing it's that it's pointless.
You seem really down on this reboot which we really don't know much about.
While the Sami Rami movies had no good spider-man movies. I'll give you 2 was a great movie but not a good spider-man movie. None of the characters were acurate to hwo they are. Spider-man is whiney and emo through all three of them lacking any of the realy humanity and fun that makes him great in the comics.
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I don't get the hate here.
Spider-man was always a melodrama. First it was a high-school melodrama, then a collage melodrama and then a working 20 some-things melodrama.
Know we all hate Twilight but that doesn't mean that everything about teenage romance is bad. In fact the relationships in spider-man have always been the opposite of Twilight. Gwen and Mary-Jane were always strong characters who gave Peter a hard time. They were not timid flowers like Bella.
The relationships were always treated in an adult way. Last year in Ultimate Spider-man Peter and MJ had sex and it was treated like a natural progression of their relationship. No bullshit Christian moralising.
So far all I'm seeing is a good director, a descent screen writer and a perfectly good leading man (though I'll admit Anton Yelchin was my fav). There no reason this wont end up as good as the Hulk reboot.
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the hulk reboot sucked.
the hulk and abomination looked like god damn action figures.
i could imagine seeing 2 little kids hands sticking into the screen holding action figures and bashing them together. those would have been the movies action sequences.
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Rad,
At this point, motive is EVERYTHING. There's nothing about this project that exists because someone wants to make a good movie; it's 100% a cynical cash-grab because Sony doesn't want the rights to revert to Marvel.
EVERYTHING that was genuinely problematic about Spider-Man 3 can be laid at the feet of it's meddling producers, and those are the people who are totally and completely in charge of this reboot: Marc Webb is NOBODY. Nice guy, apparently, but he has no clout – he's here to do as he's told. And the “romance triangle” angle isn't being used because it's true to the character – NO ONE making this cares about being true to the character, or they wouldn't have forced out Sam Raimi – it's in there because they figure this can be their answer to “Twilight.”
There is no indication whatsoever that this can turn out as anything but a failure at best and a complete disaster at worst.
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Unsure how I feel about this. Loathed Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker, though I am apparently the only one who did. So…even though this movie shows every indication of reaching a level of hell even Dante didn't get near, I'm going to fight to remain optimistic.
Because, y'know, despite everything, Garfield looks like he could actually toss out a wisecrack or two. And I wouldn't have to fight the urge to throw something at the screen if he yanked off his mask midfight.
God, please just let them ditch the damn “I'm so effing dweeby I should have been put down on birth” characterization, and it'll go a long way to healing my broken heart. Even if Spidey gets turned into a sparkly vamp by Morbius's gay brother mid-film and goes off to fight Jameson's werewolf son for a helpless and desperate-to-wed Gwen Stacey.
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“In other news, it continues to be sincerely hoped that everyone for whom Tobey Maguire doing a silly dance for about a minute in “Spider-Man 3″ was the worst thing that ever happened in the history of anything!!!!! continues to be really, really thrilled.”
Just… Let it go. You need to let the “silly dance” go. I don't know who you're listening to that the dance is all they talk about, but yeah: It WAS pretty painful. About a minute? It was one of the longest minutes I can think of, and it came on top of some of the most ill-conciueved direction I can imagine in a movie of this kind. They wanted to make the biggest movie of its kind, and it was a damn mess. I don't know about anyone you've spoken to, but most people who hate it? Yeah, they bring up the dance. Also, the amnesia subplot, the too many villains, the rushed ending… It was a mess all around.
The “silly dance” people are probably about as happy as you are, honestly.
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I wouldn't worry about Andrew Garfield. His similarity to Robert Pattinson ends in the looks department.
He won a BAFTA for Best Actor for the movie “Boy A”, and that was a “proper drama”. He'll do fine.
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