Vulture is reporting that Sony is about to announce a deal with Marc Webb to direct the next three Spider-Man movies. I guess he didn’t want to go back to Sundance after all.
The column notes that Sony’s Amy Pascal has been hot for Webb for a while, and he was on the shortlist for Moneyball after they fired Soderbergh from it (hey, what’s this? A pattern?!?). Vulture thinks they’re nailing Webb in for three, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that the actors are getting much more sticky contracts – possibly the standard Marvel Studios nine picture deal.
Oh well. My anger at the way Sony treated Sam Raimi and the way they treated the franchise is slowly giving way to jaded apathy. Expect lots of info in the coming weeks that shows my initial fears about the new franchise were well founded. Welcome to Smallville, Spider-Man style.
UPDATE: Sony has confirmed that Webb is hired.
28 comments
Joseph Gordon-Levitt will make a better Spider-Man than Tobey.. lets just see if he can match up or exceed his Peter.
What an odd choice for such a big budget franchise. They guy has made one feature film, several music videos and some shorts. I really enjoyed 500 days of Summer but to go from that to this seems like an odd leap. Still a better choice than Michael Bay, MC G or Paul (not Thomas) Anderson though.
Preach it, Dev. The dunderheads at Sony deserve all the grief they're about to get. Sam Raimi deserved more than they gave him, but I'm not surprised.
A quick summary of Spidey-Dude 4 – OMFG: "Peter Parker, spike-haired, texting teen, gets bit by a FaceBook spider. ROFL!" Assholes.
At least those James Cameron rumors don't seem to have any truth to them. Devin would've spontaneously collapsed into a black hole.
Snore, if your going to cheap out and get a nobody why not go all the way?Why not Tim Story? Why not Mark Steven Johnson it looks like there won't be a When In Rome 2.
@#4: did you post just so you could write the words "James Cameron" today? Or are you Avatards wishing him associated with every fan franchise going now? But really, do you secretly write "Mark Cameron" on the inside of your pencil case?
500 Days of Summer was okay…but yeah, as someone mentioned, how does that translate into Webb being able to pull off a 300 million dollar action tent pole? Raimi cut his teeth on actiony B horror flicks. What are we going to get, hipster Peter posing in the latest Urban Outfitters fashions and chatting about ironic things, then the movie will switch jarringly to all CGI battles and ineptly directed action scenes? I think this'll be a disaster.
Agree with #1: Joseph Gordon-Levitt could be a good Peter Parker; Tobey M. was always too mopey for my taste.
500 Days of Summer was decent, but that was because of the story — the script. What was a so great about the direction? Seems the studio's reasoning for hiring webb would mesh better with hiring 500's writer…
I'd love to see Levitt as Spidey too…
But it'll never happen. The character's a teenager again.
But yeah, this really does sound like 'Smallville' and this guy inspires no confidence.
the guy knows his lenses. they could do a lot worse.
The Playlist reported that Raimi got something akin to 25% of Spidey sequels' gross due to the bonuses from the movies hitting all kinds of milestones.
No wonder they're going with someone fairly new and cheap — so they don't have to pay him anything compared to what a "name" director gets paid.
I loved his work on the music video for Ashlee Simpson's "Boyfriend."
He looks like an arrogant piece of shit.
Anyone else see the irony in this being reported by "Vulture"? …..anyone?
What about the irony in the next movie being directed by a guy whose surname is Webb?
Mr T…are you kidding me? The direction was the best part. The cinematography and just how it was shot….beautiful. He is talented but I wish this way not a reboot. And trust me…I have complete man-love for JGL but he's too old. Give it to Anton Yelchin.
#8 – don't mean to nose slap here, but did you actually READ the Stan Lee/Gerry Conway Amazing run? Of COURSE Tobey's Parker was mopey. For Chrissakes, the first 165 issues of the book Pete was the poster child for mopey. Tobey and Sam nailed the Parker characterization for the movies. Now you're going to get "The Amazing Spider Twilight," in which Pete sends angst-filled texts to Betty Brant about the American Eagle jeans sale.
Smallville was actually quite good for a while so what's the problem with spidey becoming like it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but why are people saying it will be copying Smallville? Isn't Smallville copying Spider-Man? Smallville is about a teenaged superhero going through high school. (sarcatic) Hmmm, that sounds just like the Spider-Man comic books from the 60's and the Ultimate Spider-Man comic books, oh and the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon. How about that.
so, now we're supposed to miss the guy who phoned in Spiderman 3? yeah right. maybe he got fired because everyone everywhere agreed spiderman 3 was complete crap. i don't know this guy from jack, but a new direction was obviously called for. sam can make drag me to hell 2 or a film he actually cares about.
I'm only going to say this once, as a lifelong Spidey fan. The High School years are the LEAST interesting aspect of Spidey's life. No-one gives a shit about his origin story, no-one at all, everyone will spend all the film dying to get the godforsaken origin out of the way so we can go straight to the good stuff. What we all want is an adult Spidey (ie, a SpiderMAN) having an action-filled adventure against a really badass supervillian whilst working at the Bugle and generally being neurotic as all hell when he's not in the suit. And this Spiderman must perpetually wisecrack his way through every encounter. The stakes should be high and he should get bloody, the suit should get ripped, and at no point at all should anyone ever mention High School.
Looks like Devin (and most everyone else) have already passed judgement on the next Spiderman film, so I'll just avoid anything about it on this site until it's actually made, and determine at that point whether I'm interested enough to go see it. I skipped Spiderman 3 and the sun still rises. Raimi didn't impress me at all, and after all the negative talk about S3, the fan-love seems misplaced. I've got no love for Sony, but they don't get your money unless you give it to them. They ponied up the cash to make Spiderman movies and that means they can butcher it any way they want. Just don't pay them for it.
theres really nothing about Spiderman that needs an experimental/risktaker director.. Webb is the safeman and they plan to make plenty of profit off 80mill (instead of 150mill) investments..
This is gonna be like when Burton and Keaton left the Batman movies. At first I thought it would be all right, but then they said Robin was coming in. And they were gonna keep the double bad guy situation (too many bad guys can hurt the story, in my opinion.) It was awful. And this will probably be worse. I guess it will be about 2020 before they start over yet again. Hope they have someone with half a brain by that point.
A director of a rom-com to do Spidey? What, was Nancy Meyers too busy?
God DAMN it Magic Kenny, Tobey's Peter Parker may have been faithful to Amazing's mopey Peter Parker but that's not a good thing for fans who don't like mopey. And fans who don't like mopey don't like Twilight. Twilight was all about the mopey. Making Peter Parker less emo and mopey will make him LESS Twilight, not more. Capiche?
Rest in peace Sam Raimi, you got to sellout and make watered down fake Spiderman movies for almost ten years. New kid Marc Webb, good luck making an even more pussified fake Spiderman trilogy featuring the hideous Ultimate storyline. Fanboys, shut the fuck up and just stop giving Sony money.
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