Greetings.
Okay, so it's been a little while since my introductory post. That's the life of a college student for you. But, I'm here now, and will take this time to comment on Sony Pictures rather shocking decision to reboot the Sam Raimi Spider Man film series.
Announced on January 11th, 2010, the new Spider Man films are taking Peter Parker back to high school and showing us the origin (again) of his spectacular spidey-sense. The reboot birthed out of a disagreement over the script of the now scrapped Spider Man 4, and will not feature Tobey Maguire or Kirsten Dunst in their respective roles as Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. Director Sam Raimi has also got the boot.
Now, I'm not gonna lie, I never really cared for these movies, with the exception of maybe the first. Tobey Maguire is too awkward an actor to play the web-slinging Spider Man, and Kirsten Dunst had more screaming than actual dialogue, especially in the second film. The romantic subplot in Spider Man 2 was murder, and only held together by Mary Jane's excessive dippiness. And for some reason, the soundtrack just flat bugged me. But still, a reboot this soon? Spider Man 3 was only released two and a half years ago, people. You're not pleasing the audience, you're just killing the franchise. Yeah, Hulk (2003) was rebooted and the Fantastic 4 series has one in the works, but those movies sucked and quite frankly needed a good reboot (2008's The Incredible Hulk wasn't all that bad, either). The Spider Man movies weren't my favorite, but they were financially successful and critically praised (overlooking the third installment, here). People are not going to accept a new Spider Man film series when the first one is so new. And I cringe to think that actors like Willam Defoe (Norman Osborne), James Franco (Harry Osborne), Rosemary Harris (Aunt May), and J. K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson), who acted their parts superbly, will probably not be reprising their roles.
On the other hand, a new series means that there is definitely room for improvement withing the franchise. I would like to see a better actor play Peter (not Robert Pattison, dear Lord, NO!) and to have more focus on his sarcastic, witty side. I would also like to have the first movie focus on Gwen Stacy rather than Mary Jane (any true Spider Man fan knows that she is Parker's true love. If you don't believe me, read Marvel's "House of M"). I personally hated the way Gwen was portrayed in Spider Man 3. She is pivotal to Spider Man's origin and deserves to be put before Mary Jane. This new series is also a great opportunity to do Venom right (especially with the spin-off only a couple years away). At first I really looking forward to see how they do these new movies, and eagerly hope that they do them right. However, my common sense (my spidey-sense, that is) then reminds me that the negatives far outweigh the positives, and a new series will more than likely just screw up the franchise even more.
I think that Sony's just looking for a cash-grab here and really has no interest in making a good series. I balk at the thought of audiences seeing the preview and going: "Huh? Didn't we just see this??" and then not go out of a lack of interest. When will you learn, comics people?? When...will...you...learn?!
- The BlueScreener.
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i admit that i did not read about half of this post because i have not seen Sherlock Holmes yet (thanks for the spoiler alert!)...i agree with much you have to say about Spider-man. He's Marvel's flagship hero. I also think its wrong to reboot a successful franchise (record-breaking success!) Grr...when will studios learn that audiences don't want to be refed the same garbage that was force fed to us the first time. (Not that I think that Spider-man was pure garbage. I just couldn't resist using that sentence.)
ReplyDeletewhoops, forget what i said in the first part of this comment...i forgot that you posted those topics on separate posts
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