Why is Sony rebooting the "Spider-Man" movie franchise just five years after the last film about the wall crawler? According to the cast and filmmakers, the new take on the boy with spider powers is a whole lot more human.
Appearing at a promotional press conference in Japan, producer Avi Arad promised the film would tell "The untold stories of Peter Parker, after three movies, we finally got the opportunity to tell, what really got Peter Parker started on his journey? The fact that he lost his parents." He added that, "When Peter Parker gets his powers, all it does is enhance his physical abilities, because his heart was already very much the heart of a hero."
Garfield gave an emotional speech at Comic-Con last summer, describing how much playing Spider-Man meant to him; clearly, he's brought that to the role.
The film will also feature a different love interest; while the first film series saw Mary Jane as Peter Parker's girlfriend, Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker will be involved with Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy, who was Spider-Man's first love interest early in the comic book series.
Arad called Stacy, "Not only a great love interest, but a real intellectual friend, a real intellectual competition, a strong woman who represents our world today and our world tomorrow."
When asked about Stacy and Parker's first kiss, Stone deferred on whether or not it would be as iconic as the hanging upside down smooch that Parker and Mary Jane had in the first "Spider-Man" movie.
"You don’t want to know! You want to watch the movie and find out," she said. "Plus, it would be weird if we were like, 'There's something iconic coming up!' You've got to decide if it's iconic or not. But there is a nice first kiss and it's different than the upside down one. And we liked it."
The movie won't be without action, though. Garfield promised a plethora of stunts, though even those will come with a deeper meaning.
“As you can see, a lot of the stunts are practical and grounded in reality,” he explained. “That was something that Marc [Webb], the director, really wanted to make sure happened in this movie to set it apart from previous ones… I would exhaust myself every day and get into near-death experiences every hour on the hour… I collaborated with [the stunt team] not only on the big stunt set-pieces but also on what happens to Peter's body when he gets bitten. What happens to his DNA and how that effects the way he moves and the way he interacts with objects. The idea that he has spider DNA running in his system. What that will do to his sense of space. What that will do to the sensitivity of his skin. To have an opportunity to play in that forum with creative and talented people was a real opportunity and gift."
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