Wednesday, February 06, 2013

I'm just happy that it's not another damn origin story!


From denofgeek, Production has now officially begun on Marc Webb's upcoming sequel, The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The shoot, which is to take place entirely in New York City and New York State, got under way earlier this week, and Sony has marked this by releasing a start-of-production announcement press release.

Said press release also gives us the first official synopsis for the film though, and a flavour for which direction it's heading in. It reads:

"In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), life is busy – between taking out the bad guys as Spider-Man and spending time with the person he loves, Gwen (Emma Stone), high school graduation can’t come quickly enough. Peter hasn’t forgotten about the promise he made to Gwen’s father to protect her by staying away – but that’s a promise he just can’t keep. Things will change for Peter when a new villain, Electro (Jamie Foxx), emerges, an old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, and Peter uncovers new clues about his past."

From the last line there, it sounds like there's more of the 'untold story' that they, er, pretty much forgot to tell last time. Sony has also confirmed that Paul Giamatti has joined the cast, as has Colm Feore.

We're hopeful for a much better film this time around. We'll find out on May 2nd 2014, when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is released...



12 comments:

Octopunk said...

I never got around to mentioning it here but I saw The Amazing Spider-Man in the theater and had a lot of fun. Now I'm gonna paste in a paragraph from my 2011 review of the four comic book flicks that came out that summer:

"I bitch a lot about origin stories. In truth there's only a few specific kinds that I dislike. Superman's, because it always seems to take so long. Spiderman's (not the spider part, the Uncle Ben part) as I recently got into at some length. The rest of my displeasure is aimed at origin stories not in film but in comic books, in which they happen so often it becomes easy to see the problem: an origin story loses me when it's more of an add-on and not an actual story. For each mindblowing origin story out there (say that of Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen or the Swamp Thing's retconned origin in The Anatomy Lesson), there are dozens of guys who find a meteorite in the woods or fall in a vat of something, get powers, and then fall into heroics so fast it's like slipping on a roller skate that was sitting on a banana peel."

Anyway, props to The Amazing Spider-Man for making the origin story an actual story, and props to the filmmakers for doing the best possible job making the "same mugger" plot device as workable as possible, AND for making the ridiculously-soon-after-the-last-attempt reboot actually a better movie on all counts than the cheesy Raimi one.

That said, it is a FUCKING RELIEF to be past the goddamn bitten-by-a-radioactive-Uncle-Ben-spider stuff and on to some other stuff.

JPX said...

I also really enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man despite it being another origin story. My problem with origin stories is that anyone born in the past 75 years already knows the origins of all these famous characters. For those who don’t, the director can explain the origin during the opening credits like they did in The Incredible Hulk. When I hear the word “origin story” I immediately think, “Shit, it’s going to be at least an hour before he turns into Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, etc.” I’m always relieved when the origin story is out of the way so we can start the next movie with the character in costume ready to beat up bad guys. I don’t care how these characters became superheroes, I care about seeing them in action.

I'd like to go on record stating that I hated Rami's Spider-Man and loudly declared it to my nerd friends at the time despite overwhelming opposition to my opinion. I thought the FX were atrocious at the time but now they're downright embarrassing.

Octopunk said...

Yes yes, you said all that.

It's weird, but it seems like we had to go through bullshit like that to get to a place in which good comic book movies could finally happen. Like we had to have a version made by people who just don't get comic books and think it's about bright colors and cheese instead of awesome kinetic thrill.

I liked the 2002 Spider-Man when it came out (at least more than JPX did) but I expect I just wanted to. I mean, why does Flash Thompson look like he came from the movie Grease?

And I still like Kirsten Dunst, but her line in the end about "seeing Peter Parker's face one more time" is one of the worst line reads in the history of movies. Embarrassing.

JPX said...

"I liked the 2002 Spider-Man when it came out but I expect I just wanted to." I remember arguing about that on message boards. I think The same thing happened to me when I first saw The Phantom Menace. I actually watched it 3 times in the theater. I don't think I could ever sit through it again.

Johnny Sweatpants said...

I thought The Amazing Spider-Man was just okay and that the origin story was totally unnecessary. Even if it was slightly altered for the better, it was still only slightly altered.

My interest in Spider Man movies has dwindled to the point where I now am looking forward more to seeing how long it will take Peter to get to San Francisco in the comic strip than a new blockbuster movie. This one could be could be good though. I always liked Electro and Jamie Foxx won me over in Django.

JPX said...

I seem to recall that you watched The Amazing Spider-Man while puttering about your house and doing other things - I think you need to give it a proper viewing!

Octopunk said...

I'll tell you one thing I liked about that movie. Dennis Leary tells Peter to stay away from his daughter for her safety, and after Peter dumps her she immediately deduces what her father said to him. In a lesser series a secret like that would probably gum up a whole other movie before getting resolved.

HandsomeStan said...

As an avowed DC guy, I feel compelled to say that I am pre-emptively disappointed that Man Of Steel contains an origin story. Who in this world does NOT know where the hell Supes comes from? I'm still going to go see it, and like Octo and JPX, I think I've pre-programmed myself to like it no matter what. As long as the suit isn't as gay as Brandon Routh's.

For the record, I got the job on Spidey 2 - it's the Stunt Action Unit (all the actual cool shit like car chases and stuff exploding), but we're only doing a few random days here and there in February and March until we get fully up and running for all the big stunts that will shoot through April, May, June & July.

I'll divulge as many things as I can as the weeks go by, and as much as the legal constraints let me.

DKC said...

I have no comment on the movies, the last Spider-Man I saw was the second one with Tobey Maguire.
I really just wanted to say congrats again Stan! Can't wait to hear as much as the legal constraints allow!

Octopunk said...

Yeah, way to go Stan! Those NDAs are a bitch. I've had to keep many a small gem to myself over the years (much smaller than Stan I suspect, who is closer to the action).

I realized how tired I was of Superman's origin story when they re-did it for the 1996 animated series. I loved the series, but sheesh!

(They did insert a great twist, which was that Brainiac was Krypton's world-running computer, and the reason Jor-El's theories weren't confirmed was that Brainiac wanted to use the resources required to evacuate the population to save itself instead. It added a bittersweet depth to the villain, because Supes would be fighting the only surviving repository of Krypton's history and culture. Damn robots.)

(NDA = Non-Disclosure Agreement.)

JPX said...

Stan, that's AWESOME! What a cool career you have carved out for yourself - congrats!

Johnny Sweatpants said...

That's awesome Stan! JPX you should go be an extra if Stan can swing it.

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