The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Synopsis:
Like most teenagers, Peter is trying to figure out who he is and how he got to be the person he is today. Peter is also finding his way with his first high school crush, Gwen Stacy, and together, they struggle with love, commitment, and secrets. As Peter discovers a mysterious briefcase that belonged to his father, he begins a quest to understand his parents' disappearance - leading him directly to Oscorp and the lab of Dr Curt Connors, his father's former partner. As Spider-Man is set on a collision course with Connors' alter-ego, The Lizard, Peter will make life-altering choices to use his powers and shape his destiny to become a hero.
The Amazing Spider-Man is an upcoming 2012 American superhero film directed by Marc Webb. It is the fourth Columbia Pictures film that portrays Spider-Man in film and is a reboot of the Sam Raimi film series with Andrew Garfield replacing Tobey Maguire as the title role of the superhero. The cast also includes Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy and Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors. The film will portray Parker as his super powers are evolving in high school and will explore him trying to discover the truth behind his parents. With a theme of him discovering himself in the process. The film also brings to life new designs of the film franchise such as Parker inventing artificial webs like in the original comics instead of organic webs.
The film's development began simultaneously with Sony announcing the cancellation of Spider-Man 4. Opting for a reboot with the same production team rather than another sequel, the studio announced a July 2012 release date for what was now titled The Amazing Spider-Man. James Vanderbilt was hired to write the script while Alvin Sargent and Steve Kloves helped fine-tune the script. Pre-production involved the casting of many actors and actresses trying out the role of Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy respectively until Garfield and Stone were the clear choice. Principal photography started in December 2010 in Los Angeles before moving to New York City with the help of Red Digital Cinema Camera Company's RED Epic camera. The film entered post-production in April 2011 with the film being shot in 3D with the help of 3ality Technica and with James Horner being involved with the film score.
Sony Entertainment has focused its marketing campaign with a promotional website with released images, three theatrical trailers, a prologue screening in certain cities, a video game tie-in being developed by Beenox and a viral marketing campaign among other products. The Amazing Spider-Man is scheduled to be released first in June 28, 2012 in Europe and will then be released in the United States on July 3, 2012 in 3D and in IMAX 3D. A sequel of the film is being planned for release in 2014 with James Vanderbilt hired to again write the screenplay and with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci reported to rewrite it.
Directed by Marc Webb
Produced by Avi Arad
Laura Ziskin
Matt Tolmach
Screenplay by James Vanderbilt
Alvin Sargent
Steve Kloves
Story by James Vanderbilt
Based on The Amazing Spider-Man by Stan Lee
Steve Ditko
Starring
Andrew Garfield
Emma Stone
Rhys Ifans
Denis Leary
Martin Sheen
Sally Field
Irrfan Khan
Chris Zylka
Music by James Horner
Cinematography John Schwartzman
Editing by Alan Edward Bell
Pietro Scalia
Studio Columbia Pictures
Marvel Entertainment
Laura Ziskin Productions
Avi Arad Productions
Matt Tolmach Productions
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date: June 28, 2012 (Europe)
July 3, 2012 (United States)
Running time: 136 minutes
Language: English
Budget: $200 million
Box office: $3,402,288,904
Theme
Director Marc Webb described the film as "a story about a kid who grows up looking for his father and finds himself." Both Webb and star Andrew Garfield described Peter Parker as an outsider by choice, as someone hard to get close to. As in the early comic books, the character "is a science whiz. If you look back to the early Stan Lee and Steve Ditko comics, he’s a nerd with big glasses," said Webb. He explained that "the idea of what a nerd is has changed in 40 or 50 years. Nerds are running the world. Andrew Garfield made a movie [called The Social Network] about it. ... What was important in those early comics was this notion that Peter Parker is an outsider and how we define that in a contemporary context." Garfield compared his Spider-Man as a metaphor for internet anonymity, saying, "You feel the power of it, the power of not being seen, the power of the mask. Peter becomes witty when he's got that protective layer. It's like he's on a message board. He's got the anonymity of the Internet within that suit, and he can say whatever the hell he likes, and he can get away with anything." Garfield also tried to explore Parker as an orphan, which he feels "are the strongest human beings on the planet." He said Parker is "a human hero [who] goes through all of the same struggles that we all have gone through, especially the skinny ones [who] want more power than they feel they have." He believes Parker he represents "a very inspiring, aspirational character that symbolizes goodness — and how difficult it is to be good — but how worth it it is."
Stone described her character as "a daddy's girl" who is very responsible and protective of her family and loves science. She said her character "offers Parker a world of stability, of a family unit not marred with parental loss and, beyond physical allure, the two also forge an intellectual connection over their shared love of science." Her character, she explained, "is stuck between [her father] the Captain and Peter Parker and Spider-Man, who have different ways about going about finding justice in their lives" which she felt was a fun thing to explore.
Webb felt the Lizard was the best villain for the film because, "He's the literal embodiment of the theme of the movie, which is we all have a missing piece. He has no arm. Peter has no parents, and he fills that void with Spider-Man." Producer Avi Avrad felt likewise, explaining, "[Y]ou look at Peter, he misses the parents, [and] Connors has one arm. ...[E]motionally, [it] is a very similar problem. It is a cautionary tale." Webb said the Lizard "is he is not the worst villain on the planet. He's not a mustache-twirling guy who wants to terrorize people. He believes he's doing the right thing." Actor Rhys Ifans described the character he is playing not as an evil-incarnate villain but as a flawed character, much as with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. "Curt Connors is by no means an evil villain," Ifans stated. "He's not like the Batman villains, like the Joker, who are the embodiment of evil. Curtis Connors is a great man who makes a bad decision. ... [T]hat's the whole magic of the Spider-Man idea. These people are the embodiment of our flaws and our desires that lead to tragedy." Ifans described Connors as a force for good throughout his life: "He's a geneticist who wants to help people, like him, who are limbless. In his eagerness to advance that science, he makes a mistake and that's an occurrence we've seen throughout time, sometimes to our benefit, sometimes to our detriment. ...He is a broken man who wants to fix himself." Ifans added, "I'm not portraying a villain in any sense. Connors does feel cheated by God, and he's looking for answers in science. God seems to intervene."
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Production
Following director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man 3, Sony Pictures Entertainment announced a May 5, 2011, release date for the next film in the series. By this time, screenwriters James Vanderbilt, David Lindsay-Abaire, and Gary Ross had all written rejected versions of a script, and Alvin Sargent, who wrote the second and third films and was married to franchise producer Laura Ziskin, was working on yet another attempt. Raimi wanted John Malkovich to play the villain in this version. However, on January 11, 2010, Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced they were rebooting the series with a new cast and crew, with industry reports saying Raimi had told Columbia parent Sony Pictures he could not meet the scheduled release date and retain creative integrity. Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, and Ziskin, who were always involved with the franchise, continued on as producers.
Arad later explained, "We were working on what we called 'Spider-Man 4' and it was the same team [as with the first three films]. The problem was we didn't have a story that was strong enough and warranted ... another movie. And Sam Raimi ... realized we [didn't] have a good reason to make another one. And between [him] and [star] Tobey [Maguire] and obviously the studio, we all went into it not feeling good about the next story." Tolmach said one reason to restart the series was that the producers felt the core Spider-Man story was that of a boy becoming a man.
Screenwriter Steve Kloves did a polish of Sargent's script, saying he had originally declined the opportunity to do so but "as a favor" to the filmmakers relented. "I also really wanted to write for Emma Stone, because I like to write for women and I particularly like Emma," he explained. "So ...I did basically character and dialogue, and that was enjoyable for me. So that was my hand in it. And I did a little plot work, but a lot of the plot was done." He also did "a little bit" of dialog for Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker / Spider-Man. In April 2012, writer-director Paul Feig said that Marc Webb, who succeeded Raimi as Amazing Spider-Man director, "invited me on set, and I did a little bit of writing for that movie, for one of the high school scenes".
Days after announcing Raimi's departure, the studio announced that Webb, whose previous film (500) Days of Summer was his directorial debut, would direct the reboot. Tolmach, now president of Columbia Pictures, and Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said they looked for a director who could give sharp focus to Peter Parker's life. Webb said he "was a little sceptical at first — you feel the presence of those other movies. But then I was like, 'How could I walk away from this? What an opportunity!'" He stated that it was something he "found very appealing" and that "he couldn't let the opportunity go." Webb said in the press release announcing him that, "Sam Raimi's virtuoso rendering of Spider-Man is a humbling precedent to follow and build upon. The first three films are beloved for good reason. But I think the Spider-Man mythology transcends not only generations but directors as well. I am signing on not to 'take over' from Sam. That would be impossible. Not to mention arrogant. I'm here because there's an opportunity for ideas, stories, and histories that will add a new dimension, canvas, and creative voice to Spider-Man." Webb felt Spider-Man is different from the Harry Potter franchise, which is based on a small number of novels, and "more like James Bond" because "there's so much material in Spider-Man that there are so many stories to tell and so many characters." He described the film as "not a remake" explaining that "we're not making Sam's movie again. It's a different universe and a different story with different characters."
Effects
The company 3ality Technica of Burbank, California was involved with shooting the equipment for the 3D for the film. The film is reported to be the first to be lensed in 3D using 3ality Digital's TS-5 wireless and handheld beamsplitter mirror rig. 3ality technology helped make it possible for the film not to be post-converted to 3D. About 3D Webb explained that he wanted to create a new 3D experience for Spider-Man: "Because we're shooting in 3D, I wanted to conceive of certain things very specifically for 3D. There's an experimental component to 3D that's fascinating and we're experimenting with generating that point of view – so you feel what Peter Parker feels, you feel what Spider-Man feels when he's jumping over buildings and over the streets. He felt that if there ever should be a 3D film it should be about Spider-Man." Webb elaborated that he shot the film in stereo so it was native 3D while nothing was ever converted. Webb felt that when you get that scope, the film will gradually expand. Webb stated that he and the crew "started making the movie around the time Avatar came out" which made every studio in the world want 3D. He admitted that he hadn't worked with it before and he didn't want it forced upon the movie because he has seen bad conversions and it scared him that it hasn't been used properly. He wanted to figure out how to give the audience an experience "that's worthy of a Spider-Man film". Webb also said while James Cameron liked to play 3D as depth, Webb wanted to push it a little bit further. He wanted it so that it would come out of you with films such as Creature from the Black Lagoon and House of Wax that he remembered when he was a kid as an inspiration for him to exploit that. About the creation of the Lizard, Webb explained that there was an entire staff of people dedicated to make the Lizard look lifelike. They started by thinking about a lizard's biology and how his muscles would work.
When shooting sequences of the Lizard, the crew actually shot an actual big human guy that was referred to as Big John, who did a lot of the interactive stuff. Once the interaction of the Lizard was done, then the computer-generated lizard would replace him. Ifans would do the motion capture of the Lizard with Webb feeling that he should try to incorporate his performance into The Lizard and keep Ifan's performance in that creature. Webb described that as taking enormous amount of time and tricky. Webb also explained a lot of motion capture was used to the point that every moment was rendered from that input. It took a whole amount of work just to find the nuances, the eyebrow moves along with the lip curls. And when they were trying to create a character that speaks, they had to create a mouth armature and a biologically working palate that can actually create words. When computer generating the Lizard, Webb wanted to create emotion within the character that are essentially computer animated just like Pixar movies which he felt does it very well. In February 2012, the film was reported to be getting a digital touch up in Vancouver by Sony Pictures
Release
Sony first said on February 10, 2010, that the film would be released in 3D and IMAX 3D on July 3, 2012 in but due to high box office collections of the weekends, a few of the films original release was revealed to be changed to June in countries such as India and the Philippines. Kercy Daruwala of Sony Pictures in India felt very confident that the audiences of India will enjoy watching due to watching the film before the United States and also due to the famed Indian actor (Irrfan Khan) being connected to the film. The film will then be released in its original confirmed date in the United States in July 3. According to Sony the earliest release dates of when the film will come out is in June 28, 2012 in some countries of Europe.
Sequel
The studio plans to produce a sequel to The Amazing Spider-Man. It has hired screenwriter Vanderbilt to write the screenplay and Star Trek, Transformers and Fringe scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to re-write it. It is set for release on May 2, 2014. Webb stated that there will be a hint of the sequel's villain in the 2012 film. He additionally stated that there are hints to deeper storylines as well, but that he wishes to focus on finishing The Amazing Spider-Man before going fully to work on the sequel. Webb also stated that the origin story will unfold not just in this film but in the other films to come.
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