Spider-Man, X-Men, Wolverine, Fantastic Four and other non Marvel Studios films.

[Niners Fan in CT]

WHY CAN'T THAT BE THE WHOLE MOVIE?

 

because they have to give us more Green Goblin shit. The actor did a fine job but why is it so difficult to do a good on-screen adaptation of this character's look? Can nobody make that mask?

[TheVileOne]

 

The movie is now the worst reviewed Spider-Man movie ever and it looks like it could be the lowest grossing one as well.

 

You must mean worldwide? Boxofficemojo is projecting a $91M opening weekend and the last one opened at like $60M.

 

 

That's not accurate because it opened on a Tuesday ahead of the July 4 holiday which fell on a Wednesday that year.  This one opened on a Friday in the US, plus some Thursday night early screenings.

 

Also, if it opens with $91 million, that's lower than Captain America's opening weekend.

[LethalStriker]

I'll watch Amazing Spider-Man movies if they ever get on Netflix but not going to watch them in the theater.  The Sam Raimi Spidey series is the real Spider-Man series of movies, this new series is just to keep for the property of Spider-Man to reverting back to Marvel.

[Niners Fan in CT]

 

 

The movie is now the worst reviewed Spider-Man movie ever and it looks like it could be the lowest grossing one as well.

 

You must mean worldwide? Boxofficemojo is projecting a $91M opening weekend and the last one opened at like $60M.

 

 

That's not accurate because it opened on a Tuesday ahead of the July 4 holiday which fell on a Wednesday that year.  This one opened on a Friday in the US, plus some Thursday night early screenings.

 

Also, if it opens with $91 million, that's lower than Captain America's opening weekend.

 

 

Captain America is a colossal hit, though. Are you saying that the numbers are bad or bad FOR Spider-Man?

[Lawful Metal]

I enjoyed the movie, but I had no idea what was going on with Electro's powers.  I mean, he wasn't human anymore; he could disappear into clouds of electricity, go into sockets.  So why is he wearing clothes or being sedated? 

 

The strength of the movie is the romance.  Felt real, acted real.  If they could just cut out the villains and action scenes, you'd probably have a decent teen romance. 

[EVA]

I enjoyed the movie, but I had no idea what was going on with Electro's powers.  I mean, he wasn't human anymore; he could disappear into clouds of electricity, go into sockets.  So why is he wearing clothes or being sedated? 

 

Because it's PG-13. We can't have Jamie Foxx's big blue dong flopping around.

But seriously: The script was an Orci & Kurtzman joint, so it's not surprising that a lot of details don't hold up to scrutiny. I'm not sure they even knew how Electro's powers worked by the end. The climax is built around the concept that he's a battery; and for the first half of the movie, he definitely is. But by the time he's a god who can forego his physical body and travel through the air and whatnot, I think it's safe to say that he's no longer merely a device for storing and discharging energy and instead simply IS energy.

In which case, I don't think Spidey's gambit to overload should have worked. I dunno. I'm not Mr. Wizard or anything,

[TheVileOne]

 

 

Captain America is a colossal hit, though. Are you saying that the numbers are bad or bad FOR Spider-Man?

 

 

Not terrible numbers at all, but for Spider-Man I'd say they are disappointing.  12 years ago the first movie made $114 million on its opening weekend.  And figure in inflation, IMAX, and 3D, and there has been quite a bit of softening up of the domestic numbers.  But basically, the idea of a Captain America film surpassing a Spider-Man film in anyway is kind of absurd when you figure how huge the Spider-Man movie brand used to be and the first Marvel Studios Captain America movie only did about $391 million worldwide.  

 

And to continue on with that, I have no idea what Sony is doing with villain movies like Sinister Six.  To me, they are doomed to failure because no one will go and see that shit.  

 

Electro in this movie was Jim Carey's Edward Nigma from Batman Forever.  I can't believe no one saw this.  If I'm doing script notes, this is the first thing I point out.  Also, Foxx's role in this movie is virtually pointless.  He only has two actual encounters with Spider-Man.  And because of that all the business with Norman/Harry/Peter is sidelined and marginalized.

 

To steal a criticism of Vince Russo in pro wrestling and compare it to this movie, that one bizarre extended scene with Harry and Norman is like two movie's worth of buildup all crammed into one scene.

 

A lot of what's happened in these films make me appreciate what Sam Raimi Did a lot more.

[Brian Fowler]

Raimi's trilogy twice broke the opening weekend record.  Spider-Man 3 was 7 years ago, and it's still 8th best all-time opening weekend.

 

From a pure domestic box office viewpoint, rebooting the franchise looks like a fairly big mistake.  The first movie failed to justify any reason for doing a new origin film, and generally negative views of that film helped hold this one down, despite this one being massively better.

 

I do hope the scenes they filmed with Shailene Woodley as Mary Jane shows up on the blu-ray deleted scenes.  I think it was only two quick little scenes, one of her living next door to Peter, and one of her and Gwen interacting.  Of course, now that she has a big hit franchise of her own, and they cut her from this movie, I assume they recast MJ for ASM 3.

[Brian Fowler]

(Also, the only reason Spider-Man 2 didn't get an opening weekend record is that it opened on a Wednesday, and set a since shattered single day record.)

[Niners Fan in CT]

I don't know, I'm not surprised Captain America has surpassed Spider-Man in popularity. The whole Avengers/MCU is something Sony isn't really going to be able to duplicate (even though they are trying). If Captain America is on its on, as good as Winter Soldier was, it probably does Green Lantern numbers.

[Brian Fowler]

I'm less on the "it's doing worse than Cap" and more "it's doing way worse that it used to."

 

The first Raimi movie didn't just break the opening weekend record, it utterly demolished it in a way that had never been approached before.  Broke it by about 24 million dollars, became the first movie to ever do 100 million in a weekend (114 and change) and basically was the real starting gun on the modern superhero blockbuster run (X-Men came out two years before it and did good business, but nothing that would completely change the math for studios.)  Adjusted for inflation, and it did Chris Nolan Batman type business.  (Did better than Rises, not quite as good as TDK, domestic only, given that it was well before the modern explosion of U.S. films in foreign markets.)

 

7 years ago when Spider-Man 3 opened, Spider-Man was THE comic book franchise.  Now it's unquestionably behind Iron Man, The Avengers, Batman, probably Superman, and apparently Captain America.  That is a long way to fall.

[Brian Fowler]

(Also, I guess I should mention I thought Tobey was a much better Peter Parker than Garfield is, for whatever that is worth.)

[Casey]

I really don't get people who think that. Andrew Garfield is perfect for Peter Parker and especially Spider-Man. Then again, I would have been interested in socially awkward/antisocial Jesse Eisenberg in the same role. I'm weird like that, I guess. Tobey McGuire is just awful. In fact, the entire trilogy, to me, is a cruel parody of the entire franchise. Literally the only thing I liked about all three movies was Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus.

[Elsalvajeloco]

7 years ago when Spider-Man 3 opened, Spider-Man was THE comic book franchise.  Now it's unquestionably behind Iron Man, The Avengers, Batman, probably Superman, and apparently Captain America.  That is a long way to fall.

 

And it's not like they aren't more on the way. At some point, in three or four years tops, Marvel Studios and Marvel Entertainment might be having back-to-back weekends at the theater (meaning essentially going against each other). Then, you throw in DC finally getting it together. That's only going to lead to diminishing returns.

[Brian Fowler]

Through at least 2017, there are 3 or 4 films starring Marvel characters scheduled for every single year.

 

In addition to Marvel Studios and Sony's Spider-man, there are, of course, the Fox X-Men movies (and Fox is planning ways to expand that universe) and they have both the FF reboot and the sequel to that reboot currently scheduled as well.

 

Then you throw in that Sony wants to spin-off a Spidey franchise with Sinister Six and probably eventually Venom and who the fuck knows what else, and...  yeah, critical mass seems like it has to hit eventually.  If Warner ever gets to putting out two DC movies in a year, we are going to see our heads explode.

 

And that doesn't even count other comic related franchises not from the big two, like TMNT, Sin City, sort of Transformers and GI Joe...  Toss in some Tolkien, and lets face it nerds:  We've won the pop culture war of our generation.

[Brian Fowler]

I really don't get people who think that. Andrew Garfield is perfect for Peter Parker and especially Spider-Man. Then again, I would have been interested in socially awkward/antisocial Jesse Eisenberg in the same role. I'm weird like that, I guess. Tobey McGuire is just awful. In fact, the entire trilogy, to me, is a cruel parody of the entire franchise. Literally the only thing I liked about all three movies was Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus.

 

 

I guess this is a definite agree to disagree moment, because, damn man.  The origin story part of Spider-Man is either my favorite or second favorite origin story in Superhero movie history (only First Avengers plays on the same level for me) and Spider-Man 2 is still my easy choice for the best superhero movie ever made.

[TheVileOne]

I think Garfield is very good when he has the costume on.  When he's Peter Parker, I have no idea what he's doing.  He's unlike Peter Parker in every way.  Like casually causing a traffic accident without caring about it at all.

[EVA]

I said the same thing earlier, but I'll throw in with you guys again. Garfield is great as Spidey, but I find him totally unrecognizable as Peter Parker. He's too comfortable in his own skin. Too charming, too cavalier. He displays none of the neurosis that defined Peter at this age. Spider-Man was about an awkward social outcast getting to live the power fantasy of all the awkward social outcasts reading the comic book. That's what makes him connect. Garfield's Peter is a cool dude who gets to be a cool superhero.

It's not a dealbreaker on the movie for me, but when I hear people say Garfield is so great as Peter, or better than Toby, I just can't agree. He's very likeable in the role...but on the whole, people tend to like the cool, cocksure dudes better than neurotic chumps prone to flop sweats. The latter is Peter Parker.

[Niners Fan in CT]

It doesn't help that Tobey looked like he was 35 in high school. I like that Garfield looks younger and I do think he has more charisma. But the BIG THING that some of you are totally missing the boat on is that Garfield and Emma Stone's on-screen chemistry is WORLDS better than Tobey/Dunst.

 

One more thing..  I don't believe you can look at the ASM series and say that it is failing at the box office where Raimi's succeeded. It's unfair. This is a studio problem. There are a lot of people who were DONE with Spider-Man after the dreadful part 3 and this reboot was way too soon... 

[EVA]

SPIDER-MAN 3 was a bad movie, but it wasn't a BAMAN & ROBIN-esque, franchise-killing disaster. It made like $340 million, only slightly less than the second one. Adjusted for inflation, that's almost $400 million. That number would probably be enough to make it the #1 movie this summer. It was a colossal hit.

Moviegoing audiences were clearly not done with Raimi's series. Yes, it was shitty, but shittiness doesn't stop people from lining up for every fucking TRANSFORMERS movie, one after another.

[Niners Fan in CT]

I think it was a combination of Spider-Man 3 being bad but also that they were doing a reboot complete with origin so soon. I know I didn't want to see another origin. I finally got around to watching it and it was okay but not really necessary..

[Don]

I remember thinking when Topher Grace would have made a better Parker. And then he got cast as Brock/Venom.

[Sublime]

Holy shit I actually forgot Topher Grace and Tobey McGuire were two different people, like in my mind they had just become one big blob of blah and were so interchangeable that they were one and the same. The fact that I don't remember them appearing in anything since Spiderman 3 is another reason I forgot they were different.

[Buy Me a Burrito]

How could anyone forget Toby in The Great Gatsby, where he all but had DiCaprio's CGI cock in his mouth in every scene?

[The Iron Yuppie]

It's weird, I much prefer Garfield to Tobey McGuire as Peter/Spider-Man, and the Peter-Gwen Stacy dynamic was light years ahead of the Raimi movies' Peter-MJ. To quote Jason Mantzoukas on McGuire and Dunst together, "They have the chemistry of two sacks of wet dog shit."

 

And yet, I preferred the first two Raimi Spider-Mans to the reboot. I actually really enjoyed ASM 2. There were a few flaws; I get you can't have Jamie Foxx hanging neon blue dong al Dr. Manhattan in a PG-13 movie, but his suit being able to travel through the electric currents annoyed me. I also thought the crowds standing around cheering behind barricades as a guy made of electricity and someone in a tank-like rhino suit rampage through the city was preposterous. But I guess it sorta fits the Spider-Man tone.

 

I also thought the introduction of Harry's story line was a bit rushed to lay the foundation for the next sequel. But overall, those weren't enough to take too much away from my enjoyment. My wife said she MUCH preferred this to Cap 2.