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After ‘No Way Home’, It’s Time to give ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ Another Chance

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After ‘No Way Home’, It’s Time to give ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ Another Chance

[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Spider-Man: No Way Home.]

This December blew audiences away with the release of Jon WattsSpider-Man: No Way Home, the third outing in Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man trilogy, which reset our favorite web-slinger to his default settings and put him up against Spider-Man’s greatest rogues from the Sam Raimi and Marc Webb installments. Bringing three generations of Spider-Men together was no easy feat, as Tom Holland, Tobey Maguire, and Andrew Garfield all had to keep their mouths shut leading up to the release of No Way Home, but the results speak for themselves.

Garfield’s less-beloved incarnation of Spider-Man first debuted in 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot that many thought was “too early” at the time, leading to the series’ impending financial downfall. This version may have suffered from not having a bunch of Avengers by his side or by failing to face Spider-Man’s most iconic foes, like Venom or Doc Ock, but Garfield’s version of the web-slinger dove head-first into Peter Parker’s personal history, which made him unique among the rest. This Spider-Man wasn’t afraid to get real, to get raw, and express his more tortured side as he investigated the Oscorp conspiracy surrounding his parent’s sudden death, something the other incarnations never attempted to shed light on. The Amazing Spider-Man films give us the absolute best that Spider-Man has to offer as Garfield’s performance hits it out-of-the-park, with a willingness to go to deep and dark places to express Peter’s inner turmoil, masking his pain with a comics-accurate, comedic approach to crime-fighting.

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In Spider-Man: No Way Home, Garfield doesn’t miss a beat, hiding the pain of Gwen’s death with false confidence that slowly breaks down as he gets to know the other versions of himself. As Maguire’s Peter tells him, “you’re amazing,” Garfield’s variant can’t bring himself to say it, and isn’t that the most Peter Parker thing… This, Garfield’s uncanny ability to get into the mind of the tortured Peter Parker, is why Andrew Garfield is the best Spider-Man, and why it’s time to revisit his tenure under the mask.

There are many things to love about Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man films, one of which is the more realistic, and excitingly conspiratorial, interpretation of Spider-Man’s origin. Yes, Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) is still shot by a man that Peter refused to apprehend, and yes, he is still bitten by a radioactive spider, but The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel expand on his personal origins even further. The inclusion of Oscorp in the story (much like the Ultimate Spider-Man comics), and the revelation that Richard Parker (Campbell Scott) was working on a secret project for Norman Osborn (Chris Cooper), serves the Amazing story well, providing an emotional backbone to the origin of Peter’s powers. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 goes on to reveal that not only were Oscorp’s super-spiders a product of Richard Parker’s initial research but that he used his own blood as the basis for his experiments.


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This small explanation, which comes after Peter discovers his father’s secret lab, helps us better understand why Peter’s body reacts positively to the spider’s venom, giving him superhuman abilities rather than mutating him as it does with Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan). While not a necessary addition, it’s a logical one as it stands to reason that many Oscorp employees would have been bit by those spiders over the years, yet only Peter walks away with incredible abilities. This built-in failsafe is just another piece of Richard Parker’s Oscorp puzzle that the series explores, though sadly didn’t get to finish.

Garfield’s interpretation of Peter Parker also highlights Spider-Man’s high intelligence. Maguire’s Peter was a boy-genius to be sure, but with Garfield’s, we see Peter more as a prodigy. Between helping Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) finish his father’s formula, developing his own web-fluid, and his electrical experiments after fighting Electro (Jamie Foxx), we actually get to see Peter’s grungy scientific know-how first hand. He even uses his webs to track down the Lizard in the first film by observing vibrations in the sewers, like an actual spider. Take the Stark tech away from Holland’s Peter Parker, and Garfield’s is easily the smartest in the room. The Amazing Spider-Man films excel at highlighting this, even in the wake of Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and her own genius, which is more of an asset to Peter than a threat.


Speaking of Gwen, this Peter’s romantic relationship is a lot more believable, and natural, than the other live-action variants and their respective MJ’s. Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) never noticed Tobey Maguire’s Peter before he got his powers, and it was only once she knew his identity as Spider-Man that they were able to begin an honest relationship at the end of Spider-Man 2 (she even runs away from her own wedding). The MJ (Zendaya) of the MCU pays Holland’s Peter no mind in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and while their awkward romance is the emotional backbone of the sequel, it’s somewhat random given the events of the first film. This isn’t true at all of The Amazing Spider-Man or its sequel.

In these films, Peter and Gwen have a naturally awkward teenage dynamic from the get-go and are mutually interested in one another before and after the former’s transformation into Spider-Man. In fact, if the revelation of Peter’s identity as the wall-crawler does anything, it puts further strain on their relationship rather than sealing the deal. This becomes their struggle in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and is a lot more compelling than the will-they-won’t-they of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy. Their adorkable witty banter and explosive chemistry put them miles ahead of the other Peter Parker’s and their MJs.


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Gwen proves to be an excellent addition to The Amazing Spider-Man by truly being Peter’s equal. While she can’t swing around New York City or stick to walls, she’s as smart as Peter (if not smarter) and proves invaluable to stopping both the Lizard and Electro, becoming more than a simple damsel in distress. Gwen has her own dreams, her own family, and her own life apart from Peter that isn’t constantly revolving around his world as Spider-Man. Peter and Gwen are both self-sacrificing for one other, they (healthily) know when to put the needs of the other ahead of their own and when to double down on their own dreams. Because of this, Peter is even willing to move to England for her. Although Gwen is killed at the hands of a Green Goblin-wannabe Harry Osborn, her graduation speech is the catalyst for Peter’s decision to return to crime-fighting as Spider-Man. Sure, her death has made him bitter, angry, and he doesn’t always pull his punches (as explained in No Way Home), but he is still Spider-Man by the end of the second film because of her.


For all its faults, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 highlights a larger Spider-Man universe that opened the door for countless possibilities, something the MCU has only teased thus far. With Oscorp at the center, Spider-Man’s greatest foes were set to appear in a canceled Sinister Six film that would lead into two more Amazing Spider-Man installments, building a bigger narrative. While many believe that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 went “too big, too fast”, it actually tends to fall more in line with Spider-Man’s life in the comics. Spider-Man is always busy. There is always too much going on in his life that he has no control over, which is why Peter Parker often has to take the backseat for Spider-Man. For the other issues many claim the Andrew Garfield films had, multiple villains were never The Amazing Spider-Man‘s problem.


With recent Marvel hits like Loki and What If?… which play with variants and multiverse stories, not to mention Spider-Man: No Way Home and the upcoming Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (which is directed by original Spider-Man trilogy director Sam Raimi), it seems possible, and even plausible, that Andrew Garfield’s Amazing Spider-Man could return in the future. The recent Sony/Marvel Venom films and the upcoming Morbius all tease a connection to Spider-Man, with Morbius even showing Oscorp and the apparent return of Michael Keaton‘s Vulture from the MCU (or a variant of him). Why couldn’t Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker be the one to reside in the same world as Venom (Tom Hardy) and Dr. Michael Morbius (Jared Leto)? Both Tobey Maguire and Tom Holland’s Spider-Men have completed arcs that have rounded out their respective interpretations; could No Way Home have opened the door to finish the story of Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker?


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We could hope and speculate all day as to whether Sony and Marvel would consider continuing The Amazing Spider-Man in some fashion, and obviously, this author hopes they would, but regardless, Garfield’s Spider-Man trilogy (including Spider-Man: No Way Home) is one of intrigue and excitement that challenged everything we knew about Spider-Man and, just like his comic’s counterpart, wasn’t afraid to wreak havoc on Peter Parker’s life. With so many plot threads webbed together and emotional anchors that hit the spot every time, The Amazing Spider-Man films really give it their all, and what more could we hope for from Spider-Man?


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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

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Review: SAMARITAN, A Sly Stallone Superhero Stumble

Hitting the three-quarter-century mark usually means a retirement home, a nursing facility, or if you’re lucky to be blessed with relatively good health and savings to match, living in a gated community in Arizona or Florida.

For Sylvester Stallone, however, it means something else entirely: starring in the first superhero-centered film of his decades-long career in the much-delayed Samaritan. Unfortunately for Stallone and the audience on the other side of the screen, the derivative, turgid, forgettable results won’t get mentioned in a career retrospective, let alone among the ever-expanding list of must-see entries in a genre already well past its peak.

For Stallone, however, it’s better late than never when it involves the superhero genre. Maybe in getting a taste of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with his walk-on role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel several years ago, Stallone thought anything Marvel can do, I can do even better (or just as good in the nebulous definition of the word).

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The property Stallone and his team found for him, Samaritan, a little-known graphic novel released by a small, almost negligible, publisher, certainly takes advantage of Stallone’s brute-force physicality and his often underrated talent for near-monosyllabic brooding (e.g., the Rambo series), but too often gives him to little do or say as the lone super-powered survivor, the so-called “Samaritan” of the title, of a lifelong rivalry with his brother, “Nemesis.” Two brothers entered a fire-ravaged building and while both were presumed dead, one brother did survive (Stallone’s Joe Smith, a garbageman by day, an appliance repairman by night).

In the Granite City of screenwriter Bragi F. Schut (Escape Room, Season of the Witch), the United States, and presumably the rest of the world, teeters on economic and political collapse, with a recession spiraling into a depression, steady gigs difficult, if not impossible, to obtain, and the city’s neighborhoods rocked by crime and violence. No one’s safe, not even 13-year-old Sam (Javon Walker), Joe’s neighbor.

When he’s not dodging bullies connected to a gang, he’s falling under the undue influence of Cyrus (Pilou Asbæk), a low-rent gang leader with an outsized ego and the conviction that he and only he can take on Nemesis’s mantle and along with that mantle, a hammer “forged in hate,” to orchestrate a Bane-like plan to plunge the city into chaos and become a wealthy power-broker in the process.

Schut’s woefully underwritten script takes a clumsy, haphazard approach to world-building, relying on a two-minute animated sequence to open Samaritan while a naive, worshipful Sam narrates Samaritan and Nemesis’s supposedly tragic, Cain and Abel-inspired backstory. Schut and director Julius Avery (Overlord) clumsily attempt to contrast Sam’s childish belief in messiah-like, superheroic saviors stepping in to save humanity from itself and its own worst excesses, but following that path leads to authoritarianism and fascism (ideas better, more thoroughly explored in Watchmen and The Boys).

While Sam continues to think otherwise, Stallone’s superhero, 25 years past his last, fatal encounter with his presumably deceased brother, obviously believes superheroes are the problem and not the solution (a somewhat reasonable position), but as Samaritan tracks Joe and Sam’s friendship, Sam giving Joe the son he never had, Joe giving Sam the father he lost to street violence well before the film’s opening scene, it gets closer and closer to embracing, if not outright endorsing Sam’s power fantasies, right through a literally and figuratively explosive ending. Might, as always, wins regardless of how righteous or justified the underlying action.

It’s what superhero audiences want, apparently, and what Samaritan uncritically delivers via a woefully under-rendered finale involving not just unconvincing CGI fire effects, but a videogame cut-scene quality Stallone in a late-film flashback sequence that’s meant to be subversively revelatory, but will instead lead to unintentional laughter for anyone who’s managed to sit the entirety of Samaritan’s one-hour and 40-minute running time.

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Samaritan is now streaming worldwide on Prime Video.

Samaritan

Cast
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Javon ‘Wanna’ Walton
  • Pilou Asbæk

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Matt Shakman Is In Talks To Direct ‘Fantastic Four’

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According to a new report, Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct the upcoming MCU project, Fantastic Four. Marvel Studios has been very hush-hush regarding Fantastic Four to the point where no official announcements have been made other than the film’s release date. No casting news or literally anything other than rumors has been released regarding the project. We know that Fantastic Four is slated for release on November 8th, 2024, and will be a part of Marvel’s Phase 6. There are also rumors that the cast of the new Fantastic Four will be announced at the D23 Expo on September 9th.

Fantastic Four is still over two years from release, and we assume we will hear more news about the project in the coming months. However, the idea of the Fantastic Four has already been introduced into the MCU. John Krasinski played Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. The cameo was a huge deal for fans who have been waiting a long time for the Fantastic Four to enter the MCU. When Disney acquired Twenty Century Fox in 2019 we assumed that the Fox Marvel characters would eventually make their way into the MCU. It’s been 3 years and we already have had an X-Men and Fantastic Four cameo – even if they were from another universe.

Deadline is reporting that Wandavision’s Matt Shakman is in talks to direct Fantastic Four. Shakman served as the director for Wandavision and has had an extensive career. He directed two episodes of Game of Thrones and an episode of The Boys, and he had a long stint on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. There is nothing official yet, but Deadline’s sources say that Shakman is currently in talks for the job and things are headed in the right direction.

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To be honest, I was a bit more excited when Jon Watts was set to direct. I’m sure Shakman is a good director, but Watts proved he could handle a tentpole superhero film with Spider-Man: Homecoming. Wandavision was good, but Watts’ style would have been perfect for Fantastic Four. The film is probably one of the most anticipated films in Marvel’s upcoming slate films and they need to find the best person they can to direct. Is that Matt Shakman? It could be, but whoever takes the job must realize that Marvel has a lot riding on this movie. The other Fantastic Four films were awful and fans deserve better. Hopefully, Marvel knocks it out of the park as they usually do. You can see for yourself when Fantastic Four hits theaters on November 8th, 2024.

Film Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most iconic families makes it to the big screen: the Fantastic Four.

Source: Deadline

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Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase Star in ‘Zombie Town’ Mystery Teen Romancer (Exclusive)

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Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase have entered Zombie Town, a mystery teen romancer based on author R.L. Stine’s book of the same name.

The indie, now shooting in Ontario, also stars Henry Czerny and co-teen leads Marlon Kazadi and Madi Monroe. The ensemble cast includes Scott Thompson and Bruce McCulloch of the Canadian comedy show Kids in the Hall.

Canadian animator Peter Lepeniotis will direct Zombie Town. Stine’s kid’s book sees a quiet town upended when 12-year-old Mike and his friend, Karen, see a horror movie called Zombie Town and unexpectedly see the title characters leap off the screen and chase them through the theater.

Zombie Town will premiere in U.S. theaters before streaming on Hulu and then ABC Australia in 2023.

“We are delighted to bring the pages of R.L. Stine’s Zombie Town to the screen and equally thrilled to be working with such an exceptional cast and crew on this production. A three-time Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award winner with book sales of over $500 million, R.L. Stine has a phenomenal track record of crafting stories that engage and entertain audiences,” John Gillespie, Trimuse Entertainment founder and executive producer, said in a statement.

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Executive producers are Trimuse Entertainment, Toonz Media Group, Lookout Entertainment, Viva Pictures and Sons of Anarchy actor Kim Coates.  

Paco Alvarez and Mark Holdom of Trimuse negotiated the deal to acquire the rights to Stine’s Zombie Town book.

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