Swingin' In The Big Leagues
Iron Man: "Welcome back, kid."
Spider-Man: "Wow, you smell like Old Spice and gin. Just like Gwen Stacy's dad!"
by Pete Rogers
For those of you who were unfortunate enough to miss the breaking news that came out late last night, Spider-man’s current leash holders Sony Pictures has reached an agreement with Marvel Studios to allow the wall crawler to appear in their films. From the early onset of the news reports, it appears that old webhead will make his Marvel debut during Captain America’s third film, Captain America: Civil War. Then the master himself, Kevin Feige, will be working with Sony directly on a standalone Spider-man film. The reason I write under the pen name Pete Rogers because Peter Parker and Steve Rogers are my favorite two Marvel characters ever, so needless to say it’s taken me about 14 hours to calm down. And clearly the comic book community feels the same about the announcement, but I feel there is more to be excited about than just seeing a one off Spidey/ Avengers team up. PS there are a few potential spoilers for Amazing Spider-man 2 and Captain America: Civil War, so you have been warned.
We are one step closer to this picture becoming a reality...so close...can almost...taste it...
Our amazing, spectacular and superior editor Mike Lunsford expressed about the news, “I’m excited because it shows that GGR was right in predicting these things! I’ll lose my mind if they can find a way to include the X-Men at some point. That’ll be the day I do cartwheels in a field of daisies!”. The reason we were able to predict that Spider-man would make it on screen with Marvel someday is because so many fans have been clamoring for it and any company interested in making ALL THE MONEY EVER would listen. In the back half of Mike’s statement, this news about Peter Parker joining the gang whets his appetite for more crossovers and team up. The fact that Sony didn’t have to completely sell the rights back to Marvel gives us all hope that similar relationships can be forged with the companies that own various Marvel Properties. I’m looking at you Fox…you know what you did.
Look just because you took the picture from the other side to show what they were looking at doesn't mean its a different...wait whats this...they ARE different movies? Well not different enough.
However one casualty of this new arrangement has been actor Andrew Garfield. Friend of the site Ben Shaw who does all the artwork for the excellent comic Ethan Stone PI had this to add. “Ok I am super excited at the fact that Spider-Man is going to be able to mix and mingle with the rest of the MCU. However I am thoroughly disappointed that Andrew Garfield is no longer going to reprise his role! WTF MATE! Marvel and Sony are going to have a tough time replacing him. I am calling it now though Captain America: Civil War is going to be bigger than Avengers: Age of Ultron because if Marvel follows their narrative from the comics then Steve Rogers will get executed, which alone would be enough to send fans into an uproar. So I am very excited about the future and that Spidey can play with his friends now, but I really wish that Sony would reconsider and bring back Andrew Garfield.”
I personally agree with Ben’s sentiments about Andrew Garfield and his portrayal of the new incarnation of Spider-man. Again this is opinion, but I think it’s pretty clear that the majority of the failings in Amazing Spider-man 2 was on the part of the script, direction and pacing. I feel the acting was laudable and retrospectively looking back on Garfield’s performance, he did capture the essence of our web swinging hero. As a friend and I were recently discussing, the good Spider-Man films are the ones that only have one key villain (Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Amazing Spiderman). After the success of these films, whoever the decision-makers are choose to triple the villain count and pack way too much story into too little film. Spiderman 3 tried to introduce Sandman, Venom and “New” Goblin into the fold, and so the Amazing Spider-man 2 looked at how well that turned out and said “Hey why don’t we put Rhino, The Green Goblin and Electro all in one movie! We are so smart and there is no way that people will hate this!”. Ultimately not one of those choices was made by Garfield himself and it’s just a shame he has become collateral damage from an otherwise fantastic deal.
SIGH! All I have now is my youth, good looks, millions of dollars and Emma Stone. What a horrible life!
Obviously this news has opened the flood gates for rumor, speculation, excitement and intrigue. As more information comes out, GGR will be right there with our take on the every growing popularity of the super hero movies and the MCU.
