Given his surname, you
might think that it’s inevitable that Marc Webb would end up directing a
Spider-Man movie. But the 37 year old would be the first to admit that he’s
something of a leftfield choice to oversee this latest iteration of the
friendly neighbourhood webslinger, with The Amazing Spider-Man representing
only his second film, following 2009’s hit romantic comedy, (500) Days Of Summer.
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| Mark Webber and Andrew Garfield |
That movie’s wry humour, flashy
setpieces and focus on characters, though, persuaded The Amazing Spider-Man
producers, Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and the late Laura Ziskin that Webb was their
Spider-director. And Webb has risen to the challenge, with an earthy, grounded
aesthetic that sees the webslinger’s legendary story take place in a very
recognisable universe: ours.
We caught up with Webb in his Culver
City editing suite, and talked to him about his decision to get involved with
the project, the challenges of making Spider-Man swing, and finding Andrew
Garfield...
How did you get involved
with The Amazing Spider-Man?
I was meeting with these guys [Avi Arad
and Matt Tolmach] and they brought up the idea. I was meeting with them on
something else and I thought it was totally ridiculous. I said, I don’t make
movies like that. They said, that’s why you should do it.
This is a new version of
the Spider-Man story. How different is it?
There’s so much to tell in terms of who
this kid is. My favourite thing about Spider-Man, is Peter Parker, the fact
that he’s a kid from Queens who’s not a billionaire and he’s not an alien. He’s
a kid who has the same problems we all do and that makes him intensely
relatable. Spider-Man becomes wish fulfillment for that, flying through the air
and beating up bad guys, but that all emanates from what Peter Parker would
dream of, whether or not he was Spider-Man. To me, I wanted to start from a
place where it felt like, if you walked into the theatre, that it was the same
universe you lived in, and ground that both aesthetically and emotionally,
which is difficult when you have a giant lizard running down the street.
How did you approach the scenes
where Spidey is swinging through the city?
It was important for me to not just see
Spider-Man swinging away from afar, but to be with him and feel that. We went
to New York, near Columbia and Harlem and built a travelling rig system. We
have motion capture elements that are there to create a sense of realism,
weight and physical realism that we’re still working on and will be working on
until the day before the movie comes out. It’s about expanding the universe,
where you earn the spectacle of Spider-Man’s abilities.
You shot the movie in 3D.
It seems that, if any character is suited for 3D, it’s Spider-Man.
I agree completely. 3D after Avatar
was, for the studios, the thing to do because it was the salvation of the
theatrical experience. But it was misused and maligned. But the truth is, it’s
an incredible tool for specific things and particularly to create that sense of
flying. There are movies for which it is made and there is no character better
suited for 3D than Spider-Man.
Let’s talk about Andrew
Garfield. What made you cast him as Peter?
He was just the right guy. In his
screen-test, he killed it. It was one of those things - we did the screen-test
and that night I was cutting it together and I couldn’t stop watching it. He
moved like a kid, his elbows were flying all over the place, and even though
he’s a little bit older, he had the humour, the awkwardness but also an ability
to go deep in a way that very few actors can do. He’s a highly-trained actor,
he’s very thoughtful about that and that grabbed me. The editors we’re working
with, they didn’t know he was British! (laughs)
What can we expect from his
Spider-Man?
We start off with a different kind of
Peter Parker, without subverting the iconography of what Peter Parker and
Spider-Man is. There are certain mythological obligations people have in any
story, but it’s so radically different in terms of tone and what he experiences
and backstory and the mystery about his father that I’m very comfortable with
the movie occupying a different space. What we took for the beginning of the
story is Peter being left by his father and mother, and what that does for him,
and the emotion ripples through the movie, and subsequent movies as well.
So he suffers?
I wanted him to feel pain. We fall in
love with heroes not because of the way they can punch someone, but for how
they can take a punch. But he’s funny. We wanted to give him some quips, that
was such an important part of the character that I really enjoy in the comics.
And then there’s Emma Stone
as Gwen Stacy, a hugely important character for Peter.
Listen, I’m a romantic. I love
relationships, guy/girl stuff that’s interesting and relatable. And Gwen is
very smart. Emma’s attitude is so not a movie star, but she’s the biggest movie
star I’ve ever worked with. She’s so charismatic and funny and decent and a
wonderful actor. The other thing I like about her, is the humour. She’s very
funny.
And can you talk about
choosing The Lizard as the villain?
I’m interested in the idea that Curt
Connors was his mentor and then became his adversary and he cares about this
guy who he has to fight. He’s the literal embodiment of the theme of the movie,
which is we all have a missing piece. He has no arm, Peter has no parents. He
has to fill that void, and he fills it with Spider-Man. Curt is not as strong
as Spider-Man on the inside, but he’s much stronger on the outside, and
essentially he becomes a big bully. But I like that The Lizard thinks that what
he’s doing is right, in his weird, haywired brain, he’s right. He’s not the bad
guy. I love that. I love the idea that Peter is trying to find the humanity in
the inhumane, it gives him a very good obstacle to navigate.
Will we hear the phrase,
‘with great power comes great responsibility?’
That’s ingrained in the very DNA of
Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. There are different
incarnations of that idea that are learned in different parts of this movie,
and it’s part of his arc, but it doesn’t completely define his character. It’s
about him growing up. Every movie is, who am I? We say that in the movie,
explicitly. Being responsible for things bigger than himself is what he’s
about, it’s what superheroes are all about. It’s why we love them.
(Opening
across the Philippines on June 29 in Digital 3D, 2D and regular theaters, “The
Amazing Spider-Man” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony
Pictures Releasing International. Visit http://www.columbiapictures.
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