Comic-Con 2013: Marc Webb on Amazing Spider-Man 2

CraveOnline: What is your take on The Rhino? Because there’s the Ultimate Rhino, who has more of, like, a robot suit. And then you have the classic, 616 Rhino, who looks more like he’s in a costume.

Marc Webb: Well… I’m not gonna give that away!

 

I’m not asking you to give that away, I’m asking what your preference is between Ultimate and 616, in general. 

I’ll tell you what I like about both of them…. The real truth is, I saw Paul Giamatti on Conan O’Brien, talking about The Rhino and how much he loved it and I was like, I love Paul Giamatti and I think he’s such a brilliant actor, so, I wanted to incorporate that enthusiasm that he had in the movie. As you might now, the introduction to that character is before the suit.

 

We saw a still that looked really cool. That seems like a dangerous precedent to set, where if you’re a decent actor, you go on a talk show and just say, “Yeah, I always wanted to play The Looter and it never came up,” and now you’re like, “Ah, God dammit! Now Philip Seymour Hoffman is The Looter, I guess.”

Why is that a bad thing? That would be amazing! Wouldn’t that be kind of fucking cool!? To have Philip Seymour… If he says that, The Looter is in it!

 

Finally! Finally, my Looter movie begins.

What about The Gentleman?

 

The Gentleman. Wow. That’s getting kind of obscure. I always liked The Spot.

Yeah?

 

The Spot was always fun.

Think about The Gentleman. I’m just saying. There’s your little tidbit.

 

Oh my.

Think about The Gentleman.

 

How serious are you being? I can’t tell… 

[Nods dramatically]

 

You’re just nodding dramatically.

No, I’m just saying, think about The Gentleman.

 

I will think about The Gentleman, sir, and I will keep that right here, in my headspace.

Yeah, so… What was the question?

 

I don’t even remember anymore and that is 100% fine. Now, the tone in this, even the costume looks makes it look like it might be a little lighter. It was very, emotional, some might even say “emo” the first time. He was dealing with loss, right away.

[Laughs] Yeah, exactly. I wanted this movie to have the foundation of playfulness, I guess you would say when it comes to Spider-Man. Spider-Man is having a really fun time being Spider-Man in the film and we wanted to explore that virtuosity. He’s learned these things. He has a confidence, in the midst of total chaos that I think is really fun to watch. That comes through, not just in his abilities but in his wit. I think we wanted to make this…. You know, you just wanna shoot more in daylight. We wanted that costume to be spot-on. In the first movie, there was some resistance to the costume and I understand it, I just didn’t want to… I felt a bit of an obligation to sort of reinvent it, a little bit, the first time around. This time, I feel liberated from that. There are certain things that I just wanted to nail and the costume was one of them. I’m really happy with the way the costume turned out.

 

The new costume looks amazing. I love the new costume.

Thanks.

 

I feel like your take on Spider-Man, and he’s a character everyone owns a little bit of, you grew up with him, he’s your Spider-Man… I feel like your take is a little bit different than mine because for me, I always focused on the idea that he’s a really neurotic hero. In the comics, he’s heroic not so much because he’s pure of heart or anything like that but because he’s afraid of what will happen if he isn’t. And you talk about how he’s enjoying being Spider-Man… is that just not as much as what Spider-Man is to you?

At the beginning he’s enjoying Spider-Man but there are challenges that will unwind him, and obstacles that he has to overcome, that will test the idea of what it means to be a hero. It’s funny, like… Yeah, people have different interpretations of him.

 

Superman, too. There’s that huge debate right now, “Does Superman kill?”

Yeah, that is interesting. I saw Max Landis’s little rant on Superman and I remember he loved Superman but he called Spider-Man a narcissist. I was like, “He’s not a narcissist.”

 

I don’t think I agree with that, at all.

I don’t think that’s true.

 

I don’t think it’s fair.

He’s a little nutty but who wouldn’t be? He’s a kid, and there’s an imperfection to the way he approaches things, sometimes. I think that’s part of his charm.

 

He makes mistakes. 

Yeah, exactly.


William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.

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