With plans for a fourth installment in the Spider-Man film series flat on its back from a spray of the nearest Raid can, I was quite surprised when I heard that instead of leaving the franchise to be savoured by future generations, Hollywood shouts the "R" word that will likely become part of our children's vocabulary before heading out to the movie theatre.
Reboot!
Spidey's diehard comic book fans and film viewers had their complaints about the third installment. I still fight the temptation to turn my television into a dartboard when having to rewatch Peter Parker put on his dance shoes and remove his dignity after embracing the jazz-enhancing power of the symbiote costume. However, Spider-Man 3 still remained a moderately good movie at its lowest. For a film that had too many storylines, almost all of them moved it forward and connected these characters. Columbia Pictures should be thankful Spider-Man's film franchise did not fall even close to the depths that Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin plunged.
The grounds for a film franchise reboot should be on understandable conditions. After the 10 zillionth 007 movie, the current generation needed James Bond to store his invisible car in the garage and put his side arm to use. Star Trek was a universe only understandable to fans that could recite techno-babble like Bible passages and filmmakers wanted to make it both creative and enjoyable to a wider audience.
How is the Spider-Man film series, which I remind you has not even been over for half a decade, in major need of a cinematic makeover? There's only so many ways you can bring a wise-cracking, pyjama wearing teenager to life and not have the audience think they've walked into a theater showing the lastest terrible parody film.
Allegedly their plans are to restart Peter's origins of coming into the Spider-Man identity by having them take place in high school. Apparently these filmmakers have completely forgotten that the first twenty to thirty minutes of the first Spider-Man movie were in high school. Is this how far the creativity soars for this planned film idea?
Marc Webb has been chosen as director of this film franchise. Webb's career as a film artist is mostly built around music videos for such bands as My Chemical Romance, Yellowcard and Green Day. His first feature film was (500) Days of Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Granted, the film was met with great reviews at the theaters, but its marketing was minimal. To have Webb go from directing a movie about a teenage relationship to taking the helm of a motion-picture franchise based on one of the world's most popular superheroes could have fans assume he was only picked for his last name!
If Webb has great material ready to share with the world, he's more than welcome to step further into mainstream Hollywood. My only hope is that he realizes very soon that weaving this web will either make his newfound feature film career or leave it to the spider's fangs.
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