People seem to hate the Amazing Spider-Man movies for no apparent reason. Honestly, the second movie felt rushed when it came to the Harry Osborne and Green Goblin storyline, and might have been better to take more time on it and less time on the Electro story, but it was a good movie and had a lot of nice moments. I thought the Peter and Gwen love story was well done and her death played out perfectly.
In my Amazing Spider-Man 2 review, I said the movie presents the best Spider-Man in any of the five movies so far. I still feel that way and really believe that this was the PERFECT depiction of Spider-Man. I say that as a Sam Raimi fan, but feel that Andrew Garfield is Peter Parker to me now in a way that Tobey Maguire never could accomplish.
I am in the minority, I have learned.
You know those crazy Sony email leaks that the hacker delivered (you know, the ones that said that Sony wanted to make a 21 Jump Street-Men in Black combo movie)? Well, there was a lot of info about the Spider-Man franchise and the proof that Sony has no idea what the hell they are doing when it comes to that money making franchise.
First of all, apparently Andrew Garfield is not happy about how Sony has dropped the ball on the Amazing Spider-Man franchise. He feels that they hurt the film in post-production by removing things and then causing the film to be “broken,” in his words. To put it simply, any plot holes and strange jumps in the movie, if Garfield is to be believed (and there is no reason not to) is because the editors hacked it up without considering the story.
He also no-showed a publicity event – at the last minute – and Sony is said to have decided at that time to FIRE Andrew Garfield. Yeah, they fired the best Spider-Man they ever had and one of the only people (along with Marc Webb) who actually cared about the franchise.
But, the Sony email leaks show there might have been more to it than just that. According to some of the email leaks, Sony has been in touch with Marvel about letting Marvel use Spider-Man in the upcoming Captain America: Civil War movie. That would be HUGE since Spider-Man was the most important character in that story outside of Iron Man and Captain America. Honestly, Spider-Man was more important because he was the proof of how a superhero could be hurt – badly – while the two big shots were battling each other.
Spider-Man was the heart and soul of Civil War in Marvel Comics and it was him that the reader sympathized with the most out of anyone.
Marvel Comics
The deal between Sony and Marvel was dependent on the last two movies being erased from memory – and that meant that Marvel didn’t want to use Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. The original talks also included Sony getting a cut of the backend of the Captain America movie in exchange for the use of Spider-Man and that the two companies would share Spider-Man with a Sony-Marvel 60-40 split.
The deal was also supposed to maybe have Marvel tip-off the Amazing Spider-Man spin-off movie The Sinister Six, but to show how desperate Sony is, they even said they would ditch that movie altogether if they needed to. What they are adamant about is the all-female Spider-Man spin-off movie (Black Cat and – other people??) and the word is, even if the Marvel deal falls through, they will likely ditch Andrew Garfield anyway.
If Marvel does get their hands on Spider-Man, the idea right now is for the origin story to not be told again. They also don’t want any more focus on his love life as a major theme in the movies, since the last five movies spent a lot of their time on Peter’s relationships with Mary Jane and then Gwen. Marvel just wants Spider-Man to be Spider-Man and fighting villains while balancing his life as a teenager. Honestly, I loved Amazing Spider-Man 2, but that sounds really good to me.
I just wish they would keep Andrew Garfield.