Pah, I was just getting into that. The game of ‘who’s today’s rumoured Spiderman reboot director’ was just getting fun, but now Sony has gone and ruined everything by announcing that they’ve signed up Marc Webb, the director of (500) Days Of Summer.
Webb was one of the rumoured directors and always seemed the most likely to be true (as the info on him taking meetings with Sony seemed fairly solid), and according to Variety, it’s now it’s official. Although Webb has little experience working on such a massive scale film, (500) Days showed he had a deft touch for dealing with the issues of young people.
As Sony has suggested the reboot script, by James Vanderbilt, sees Peter Parker back in high school and dealing with plenty of youthful angst, Webb could be a good choice. It’s also true that from the studio’s perspective, a new director getting his Hollywood break is likely to be more compliant to their wishes than Sam Raimi, plus he comes a lot cheaper (Raimi got $10 million plus a percentage of the gross on Spidey 3).
While there have also been a lot of ‘will this person be the new Spider-man?’ stories, don’t believe any of them. The latest on the rumour mill is Jim Sturgess, who would indeed make a good Spidey, but he’s too old to play him in high school. Sony has said that up until this point, they haven’t even been considering new actors for the role, so any rumoured Spidey actors are pure speculation at this point. However, now that they have a director, finding a Peter Parker will start in earnest.
Webb said of his new gig, “This is a dream come true and I couldn’t be more aware of the challenge, responsibility, or opportunity. Sam Raimi’s virtuoso rendering of Spider-Man is a humbling precedent to follow and build upon,” says the new man in Spider-Town… 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.”
He’s certainly got a tough job ahead of him, as rebooting a franchise that’s still well liked and so recent isn’t an easy ask.It needs to be familiar enough to please fans of the Raimi films, while different enough to justify rebooting the entire thing. The current suggestion is that the film may be budgeted at only $80 million, which is nothing for a tentpole flick these days, and suggests there’ll be a lot more angst and a lot less swinging through New York this time around. That’s not intrinsically a bad thing, but it does suggest big changes are in store.