Andrew Garfield On 'Amazing Spider-Man': 'Screw The Critics'

Marc Webb's "The Amazing Spider-Man" was a huge blockbuster after its release in July of 2012. The Sony reboot of the popular comic franchise grossed $752 million worldwide, and helped launch a new series of films that continues this May with "The Amazing Spider-Man 2." It, however, wasn't a totally smooth ride to success: many critics were disappointed with how Webb's film felt redundant coming so soon after Sam Raimi's three "Spider-Man" movies, the first of which was released in 2002.

"In the first movie, we were obligated to retreading the origin story which Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi did so beautifully," star Andrew Garfield said in a new interview with IGN. "Now that it's done, we get to own the character as filmmakers, and we get to own it as Peter. There is a life imitating art kind of thing going on, I think."

For Garfield, it's the "Amazing Spider-Man" sequel, that has him "super excited."

"When I put that suit on, I felt freer. I can't think of a word to use that's not the f-word, but, like, screw the critics. Screw the scrutiny," he said. "That's the motto for life, as well. If there's one bit of advice I could give my childhood self, it would be don't care what people think of you."

Garfield's confidence in the film is mirrored by Sony. The studio recently screened 30 minutes of footage from "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" for journalists in New York and Los Angeles, and also showed a reel from the film to theater owners at CinemaCon in Las Vegas this week. For more on those scenes, read HuffPost Entertainment's report here. Watch Garfield discuss "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" below.