Archives
In 2008 Marvel began their ambitious plan of creating a cinematic version of their comic book universe. The lead up to the Avengers seemed like a giant mountain to climb…and it paid off for Marvel. And over and over, Marvel saw themselves succeed. And here we are at ten years and 21 movies later were arrive at the culmination of that success. The Avengers were left in a pretty broken state after… Read More
Spider-Man has the distinction of having been rebooted three times in the last fifteen years. Both the Raimi Films and the Marc Webb films have good points. Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is a high point for super-hero themed films. But they also never quite fully got Spider-Man as a character. Maguire’s Peter Parker could be to goofy, while Garfield’s Peter was to moody and mopey. Sony hit some hard times, made all the… Read More
So, the day Sony and Disney drop the new Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer (which was met with a pretty positive response) producer Amy Pascal drops the bomb. One of the things that I think is so amazing about this experience is that you don’t have studios deciding to work together to make a film very often. In fact, it may never happen again–after we do the sequel. It appears Sony is hoping to… Read More
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was pretty much greenlit before the previous film was released. Sony has been trying to make their Spider-Verse work…and to date they just cannot seem to find the footing. Spider-Man 2 was not just a sequel, it was meant to set up other films, such as a Sinister Six film.Which means the film is packed with villains. We meet the Rhino, though he is only in the film… Read More
After Spider-Man 3 had it’s tepid response, Sony tried to cover it’s butt. They had Raimi developing a fourth Spider-Man film…and 500 Days of Summer Director Marc Webb (the humor there was not lost on anybody) was developing another Spider-Film. Sony decided to go with Marc Webb’s version and dumped the entire Raimi version. Webb promised this would not be a reboot, even though it would have an entirely new cast. In… Read More
The Spider-Man franchise is one of the first super-hero films to feature it’s entire series with the singular vision of a specific director. Raimi did a good job with the first one and a spectacular job with the second film. It still stands as a high watermark for the superhero film genre. Three is a bit more…complicated. There is a Spider-Man comic for Marvel to publish. The Complicated Spider-Man. We open with… Read More
I’ve seen a trend over the past several years in some fans of Spider-Man. They prize a certain aspect of the character among all others. And that is “relate-able”. In fact, they thrive and push for this to such an extreme that it suggests they do not understand the fundamental core of the character. Spider-Man, and by extension Peter Parker, is not really about how relate-ability he is. It isn’t his girl… Read More
Seriously…not the Amazing Spider-Man? Not Spectacular Spider-Man?! Despite the blandly titled Spider-Man 2…I sensed a trend for Marvel Movies. The nice thing for the creative team was that they were not saddled with telling the origin story. Instead, they were free to jump right in to start a new story. And jump in they do-to Peter struggling to make ends meet with a job delivering pizzas by scooter. Realizing he is running… Read More
The anticipation for a James Cameron Spider-Man went from drool to ridicule after Titanic. Some were fearful he would use Leonardo DiCaprio (and while he is a pretty guy, I think he would have found a way to be a convincing Peter Parker-the guy can act). But ultimately, the idea of a Cameron Spider-Film faded away. There was some surprise when it was announced that Spider-Man was in the hands of Sam… Read More
So, Nerd Rage is beginning for the upcoming Spider-Man movie. Why? Well, it appears that a character known for her model level good looks: Will be played by a person with model good looks: So, Mary Jane Watson will be played by Zendaya. Truth be told, I know little about her. I actually did not know who she was at all until earlier this year, style folks at the Oscars condemned her… Read More
