It was only a decade ago that Spider-Man was finally made into a movie after taking forever to untangle a Gordian Knot (or web) of rights.
Sam Raimi was a great choice for a director, but the Spider-Man movies are a mixed legacy. The first one wasn’t great, but it could have been awful in the hands of some hack, the second Spider-Man was terrific, my personal favorite comic book film, and the third one was a mess.
Personally I felt the Spider-Man films should have gotten out while they were ahead, but with Raimi and company leaving the franchise, Sony is rebooting it from scratch with a whole new cast and director. Now Andrew Garfield, the new Peter Parker, is talking about taking on such a big role with the original big screen Spider-Man Tobey Maguire, who was definitely an excellent casting choice.
Because a lot of celebrities hate the press, they’ll often interview each other so no one asks any tough questions, so for Vman magazine, Andrew and Tobey had a pow wow, and here’s some of what was said. First off, Garfield knows this is a big role, and he said that when he was a kid, “I needed Spidey in my life as a kid, and he gave me hope…Peter Parker has inspired me to feel stronger, he made me braver. He saved my life.”
Garfield is performing in Death of a Salesman on Broadway, and he also said, “The only thing that’s been preying on my mind is the impending release of this movie, and that is much more stressful than being on stage every night.”
Passing along the torch, Maguire told Garfield, “I was certainly curious as to who was going to play Peter Parker. When I heard it was you, I was literally like, f*cking perfect! I thought, what a great actor Andrew is, I’m glad that’s what’s happening here.”
Garfield and Maguire also compared notes on overnight fame, which Andrew’s worried about. “Right now I have a host of fears that I’m contending with on a minute-to-minute basis,” Garfield said. “I’m not in the reality of it yet.”
Maguire said, “So much shifted in my life the weekend the movie came out. It was shocking. I’d been making movies for a while so I had experienced some attention. But then all of the sudden, the Sunday after it was released – it was a lot more attention than what I was used to.”
Garfield certainly knows what’s ahead, but rhetorically asked, “Is there any way of containing it? Or humanizing it? I just feel such a great responsibility to the story and to the fans, because I know in my heart how much this character means to people.”
And of course, as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility, and as Garfield concluded, “I want to bring the character to life and make sure they’re as satisfied as they can possibly be.”
