Now that the Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios have finally seen eye-to-eye on what to do with my favorite fictional character Spider-Man, I am a happy fan. There are a few things I hope they remember as they sit down and prepare to relaunch the franchise with the sixth movie since 2002.
1. NO MORE ORIGIN STORY - Hands down, one of the most difficult things to sit through about the 2012 film The Amazing Spider-Man was the retread of his origin story, especially the death of Uncle Ben. Sam Raimi's take on that particular aspect of Spider-Man's history was pitch perfect, and Marc Webb's was just clunky in comparison, although by having the thief-killer get away, they did establish a motive for Peter to play the masked vigilante before he realized he had a higher calling.
Still, all together, the Spider-Man movies have made something like $4 billion at the global box-office, meaning it's rather unlikely that most people would still remain unfamiliar with Spider-Man's back story. I say this is on my wish list, because to my mind there is still the risk that Sony/Marvel might trot one out just to emphasize that all previous continuity has been discarded. I think the origin can be covered in an opening credits sequence.
2. KEEP THE LATEST ITERATION OF THE COSTUME - After talking about something to discard, I'd like to mention something that I think Sony/Marvel should keep, and that's the costume that Spider-Man wore in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was basically brilliant, and which took everything that was good from both the comic books and the previous movies and put it up on the screen. The first Amazing Spider-Man costume from the 2012 movie was awful, and to my mind was developed solely to distance the reboot from the original trilogy, especially Spider-Man 3. That might be the case here as Sony may try to start fresh, but as with the origin, some things don't need to be done over again. It wasn't the costume designer's fault that the last movie sucked, after all.
3. MILES MORALES WON'T WORK - There are rumors that Sony is contemplating using Miles Morales, the half-African-American, half-Puerto-Rican kid who became Spider-Man in the "Ultimate" universe after the death of that universe's Peter Parker. As a reader who owns thirty-plus issues featuring Miles as Spider-Man, I can categorically say that this won't work. Miles Morales becomes Spider-Man in a very specific narrative context, one which involves the death of Peter Parker, and something tells me there's no way in hell that Sony or Marvel will want to kill that character. One cannot simply insert Miles into Peter's back story, because that wouldn't be Miles, it would just be ethnic recasting, and considering the internet firestorm Fox endured for Michael B. Jordan, a black actor, as the traditionally Caucasian Johnny Storm, I'm not sure that would go over so well with a studio looking to rejuvenate an ailing franchise.
4. SPIDER-MAN DESERVES AN EPIC MUSICAL THEME - This is just a matter of personal preference, but of the three composers who came up with themes for Spider-Man, I liked the work of James Horner the best, and not just because I've long had a soft spot for his work. For me it perfectly captured the balance between earthbound Peter Parker and high-flying Spider-Man. Hans Zimmer wrote a solid job, even though his theme seemed to have been lifted from Mark Isham's music for the baseball drama 42. Unfortunately, it is more likely than not that all of the previous Spider-Man music will be discarded in keeping with the spirit of rebooting. Whoever they get to compose music should give Spider-Man a tune that is both distinct and memorable, and as much as possible, they should steer clear of cookie-cutter composers like Brian Tyler. I think Star Trek composer Michael Giacchino would be a good fit of the webslinger.
Finally...
5. PETER PARKER HAS TO BE SOCIALLY INEPT - While I understand the need to replace him, I liked Andrew Garfield's performance for the most part. What I didn't like about him was that he came across less like an outcast and more like a rebel of sorts. Basically, though Garfield's performance definitely had heart and while he understood the character pretty well, he wasn't quite as socially inept as Peter Parker is traditionally supposed to be. Tobey Maguire, whose performance was also flawed in quite a few ways, got this right about the character, though at times he overplayed it. Peter Parker is a nerd, after all, and he needs an actor to play him like one, maybe not in the mold of the cast of Big Bang Theory, but definitely one a little less charming than Andrew Garfield.
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