8. Spider-Man
The Past: Spider-Man has seen his fair share of big screen success and failure. Sam Raimi’s original trilogy was, for the most part, a financial and critical success, with Spider-Man 2 still one of the greatest super hero movies of all time. I say “for the most part” because Spider-Man 3 was quite the let-down, and I think by this stage we can all agree on that, especially since it meant any plans for Raimi’s “redemption” fourth entry never saw the light of day.
So, when it came time for Sony to reboot the franchise, they would go edgier, younger and more grounded, a Spider-Man that more closely resembled the Ultimate Spider-Man books than Raimi’s, whose love for the classic comics was evident. In came Marc Webb, the director of (500) Days of Summer and instant pun generator. Sony wanted to “universe” the Spider-Man franchise in the same way Marvel was pumping out Avengers-related titles, with a planned Sinister Six spin-off.
Why He’s So Hard to Get Right: Okay, so technically Spider-Man’s been “done right.” Like I said, Spider-Man 2 is still fantastic. But the hero’s been down a long, messy road since that film. Spider-Man 3 failed to end Raimi’s trilogy on a high note and pushed Sony to completely revamp the character. The reboot ended up being even more of a mess, with the studio pushing for a cinematic Spidey-verse that made the plots of the two Amazing movies too convoluted, with dangling plot threads that we’ll never see resolved (not that we really cared).
Spider-Man has one of the richest comic book histories of any super hero in existence, with a surplus of dynamic and engaging characters to choose from. So why has the character been going through such a stressful time for almost the last decade? Well, that could be one of the problems in itself. Spider-Man is a character that could be adapted in a lot of different ways, and the right way just hasn’t been perfected yet.
The Future: With Sony and Marvel now in cahoots and bringing Spider-Man into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, hopefully whatever damage the last 8 years has done to the character’s on-screen persona will be rectified.
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