Willem Dafoe is not a fan of Sony's "Spider-Man" reboot, "The Amazing Spider-Man."
Dafoe, who starred as Norman Osborn (a.k.a. Green Goblin) in Sam Raimi's 2002 film about the young webslinger, told Total Film that he was disappointed to see the studio take another crack at the character.
“I saw a trailer for the first Spider-Man reboot and I thought, 'This is crazy! It's not shot for shot, but it's the same story,'" Dafoe said. "I thought, 'This is sort of a cynical approach to making money!'"
Indeed, while there were some major differences between 2002's "Spider-Man" and 2012's "The Amazing Spider-Man" -- notably, that Spider-Man fights The Lizard instead of Green Goblin, and that Mary Jane doesn't appear -- the film's were largely structured the same, owing to the fact that "The Amazing Spider-Man" was yet another origin story for the character.
Dafoe isn't the first "Spider-Man" actor to question the existence of "The Amazing Spider-Man." James Franco, who played Dafoe's onscreen son, Harry, in the film and its sequels, has gone on record twice before about his issues with director Marc Webb's reboot.
"I mean, they could have strayed a little bit more from the original," Franco said to MTV in January of this year. "It's like, 'Why?' Well, I guess they made a lot of money. Congrats. Good for them. Sam and I moved on, we made 'Oz The Great And Powerful.'"
In a piece published by Vice in June, Franco wrote that the 2012 Spider-Man reboot was made "before there was time to bury the corpse of the old one and enshroud it in the haze of nostalgia."
In fact, of the original "Spider-Man" participants, only Raimi himself has come out in favor of "The Amazing Spider-Man."
"I loved it," Raimi told the website Hey U Guys back in March of this year. "Of course the next Spider-Man story should be told, and [Marc Webb] did a wonderful job telling that. I loved the movie, and I'm looking forward like a fan to the next installment. I love the comic book, and now I don't feel bound, and I'm really glad somebody's remaking it again."
For more from Dafoe, head to Total Film. Sony will release "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" on May 2, 2014.
