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Marc Webb Swings to Spider-Man 4

By | January 20th, 2010
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In a move that surprised absolutely no one given the happenings after Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire and the rest were summarily dismissed, today it was announced that (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb will be taking over the Spider-Man franchise. Most reports are stating it will be titled Spider-Man 4, but given the nature of this reboot I for one find that highly unlikely.

To me, this is a superb decision. Given the nature of this reboot – a back to basics Spider-Man story more akin to Brian Michael Bendis’ Ultimate Spider-Man (which Webb claims he is a big fan of) that will focus on Peter Parker the high schooler as much as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man – it makes perfect sense to choose someone like Webb. He’s already proven himself as someone who has a strong grasp on the day-to-day life of young men with beautiful women and big dreams in sight. I’m a huge (500) Days of Summer fan, and I think his storytelling ability and origins in more interpersonal stories will help the series quite a bit.

For a further quote of excitement, here is a nugget from THR:

The touchstone for the new movie will not be the 1960s comics, which were the inspiration behind the movies by Raimi, who grew on up on them, but rather this past decade’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” comics by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley where the villain-fighting took a back seat to the high school angst.

Sign me up!

Some have already hemmed and hawed at this decision, or the decision to scale the budget back to $80 million, or even the idea that they are looking for a cast of unknowns. To that I have three answers: watch (500) Days, District 9 cost $30 million and that looked incredible, and another comic movie starred an unknown once – X-Men with Hugh Jackman. I think we’ll be alright fellow comic fans.


David Harper

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