Fear of a black Spider-Man
July 3, 2010 2:36 PM   Subscribe

Andrew Garfield is the new movie Spiderman, meaning despite internet campaigns and some lukewarm support from Stan Lee we'll never see this: Donald Glover as Spider-Man. Meanwhile the much delayed (and somewhat insane sounding) Spider-Man musical still stumbles on.
posted by Artw (46 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
That's racist!
posted by hincandenza at 2:51 PM on July 3, 2010


Uh, for context....
posted by hincandenza at 2:54 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]


How can you "reboot" a movie series that isn't even ten years old?
posted by Slothrup at 3:09 PM on July 3, 2010


Well, first you badger a director into stuffing so much extraneous crap into the third movie that it's near unwatchable...
posted by Artw at 3:11 PM on July 3, 2010 [2 favorites]


Peter Parker with a pompadour? How will that play in Peoria?
posted by Iridic at 3:13 PM on July 3, 2010 [2 favorites]


Donald Glover as Spiderman wasn't taking it far enough. How about they hand the entire Spiderman franchise over to Derrick Comedy? THAT I would pay money for.
posted by brookedel at 3:27 PM on July 3, 2010 [3 favorites]


Meanwhile, over in another corner of the Marvel movieverse, folks are agitating for Isaiah Mustafa as Luke Cage.

That's right, the Avengers movie could, in a perfect world, feature The Power Man Your Man Could Smell Like.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 3:36 PM on July 3, 2010 [5 favorites]


I really liked Garfield in Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, so I'm pleased with the choice. And I may be the only person on Earth who's totally fine with the reboot, but then the comics suck so much right now that I'll take any decent alternative that I can get.

Cancelling Spectacular Spider-Man for another cartoon series, though? That's a crime.
posted by bettafish at 3:36 PM on July 3, 2010


sorry, i would have LOOOOOVED to see a black spider-man because it is so US IN THE AGE OF OBAMA. another wasted opportunity. kudos to the FPP for the extremely appropriate title.
posted by liza at 3:49 PM on July 3, 2010


Garfield was great in PARNASSUS and superbly wounded in RED RIDING - see it if you get the chance.
posted by jettloe at 4:03 PM on July 3, 2010


Damn! Glover's great in "Community" & "Mystery Team."

I bet you it's Old Man McGinty's fault!
posted by Pronoiac at 4:09 PM on July 3, 2010


Aw, Andrew Garfield was also the kid with the terrible southern accent in Daleks in Manhattan. I knew he had nowhere to go but up!
posted by brookedel at 4:35 PM on July 3, 2010


I have this horrible feeling that before long Hollywood is just going to look at the top twenty money-makers of the last decade or so and do nothing but reboot them. That and produce movies about old toys.

I sometimes feel like five-year-old me got hold of the Cosmic Cube or something and remade the world of contemporary pop culture in his own image. Unfortunately, five-year-old me was a little bit limited in his tastes as a moviegoer.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:40 PM on July 3, 2010 [9 favorites]


Well, reboots with different actors have upside and downsides - at leats X-Men: First Class won't be starring the horrible plastic-faced "de-aged" Patrick Stewart from the horrible, horrible Wolverine movie.
posted by Artw at 4:43 PM on July 3, 2010 [1 favorite]


Well, reboots with different actors have upside and downsides - at leats X-Men: First Class won't be starring the horrible plastic-faced "de-aged" Patrick Stewart from the horrible, horrible Wolverine movie.

They may need to do the same thing with Garfield, since according to Wikipedia he'll be almost 28 when the first movie (in which he plays a high school student) makes its debut.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:54 PM on July 3, 2010


Couldn't they just burn his face off and use plastic surgery to reconstruct it? The result looks about the same.
posted by Artw at 4:58 PM on July 3, 2010


(My bad -- that's almost 29! I realize you have to suspend some disbelief just to buy the idea of Spider-Man to start out with, but ye gods!)
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:58 PM on July 3, 2010


When will the first movie to reboot itself during the movie appear? I predict 2016. By 2020 movies will just be a series of establishing shots of different actors playing the main characters walking into a room and greeting each other.
posted by No-sword at 5:12 PM on July 3, 2010 [15 favorites]


Somewhat related, Glover's musical half, Childish Gambino has released two mixtapes in the past month and a full album, Cul-De-Sac, was just released today. All of them are free. Not really into it myself but dude's all over the place.
posted by june made him a gemini at 5:51 PM on July 3, 2010


wrote too quick - the album is simply Culdesac.
posted by june made him a gemini at 5:52 PM on July 3, 2010


By 2020 movies will just be a series of establishing shots of different actors playing the main characters walking into a room and greeting each other.

Might be funny. I propose that they play a PC startup "beep" just before each introduction.
posted by JHarris at 6:14 PM on July 3, 2010


Boy, was I confused when I thought people were talking about Danny Glover.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 6:22 PM on July 3, 2010


Donald Glover would have been a great choice. He just seems like he could pull off the right amount of nerdy.
posted by drezdn at 6:39 PM on July 3, 2010


I'm sure this kid's great, I'm sure the new franchise'll be a hoot, yaddayaddayadda. Know why it doesn't matter? Because that last trilogy could have been one long buildup to the greatest payoff ever.

Here's the movie I wish they were making instead of a reboot. A Spider-Man 4 wherein it is revealed that all those Bruce Campbell cameos were him playing Quentin Beck the whole time. In part four, he becomes Mysterio and bedevils Spidey with a nonstop onslaught of tricky illusions and masterful one-liners. If Sony would rather go ahead and reboot the series rather than produce the greatest movie ever made, I suppose that's their business ...
posted by EatTheWeek at 6:59 PM on July 3, 2010 [9 favorites]


If they're rebooting, I assume they're skipping the Origin Story? Cause I am sick of them. We all know who Spiderman is at this point. We get it. The first movie is wonderful - have your new Spiderman have adventures in space or something.
posted by The Whelk at 7:47 PM on July 3, 2010


They "rebooted" the hulk movie just a couple years after the Ang Lee version. Seemed kind of desperate.
posted by delmoi at 8:55 PM on July 3, 2010


(My bad -- that's almost 29! I realize you have to suspend some disbelief just to buy the idea of Spider-Man to start out with, but ye gods!)

I find it really ironic that Hollywood is "youth obsessed" yet consistently casts actors way older than their characters.
posted by bobo123 at 9:07 PM on July 3, 2010


Donald Glover is great. Community is one of the best shows.

Boy A, is super great too. That;s the other guy though, right? the real new spidey?
posted by djduckie at 9:46 PM on July 3, 2010


That and produce movies about old toys.

What do you have against Magic 8 Ball: The 3d Adventure?
posted by Evilspork at 10:10 PM on July 3, 2010


It's just hard for me to imagine anyone other than Toby as Spiderman. He really fit the role well - high pitched voice, wimpy looking but with an intensity that said "Ya, I may seem wimpy, but I got bitten by a genetically modified spider" and the whole pseudo-passion between him and Dunst was epic.
posted by Hasai at 10:22 PM on July 3, 2010 [2 favorites]


Wait, does this mean Gwen Stacy finally gets dropped off a bridge, proper like?
posted by reklus at 10:54 PM on July 3, 2010


I would so watch him jump around in spandex.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:28 PM on July 3, 2010


And let's be honest here, that is the defining metric of watching a superhero movie. Gay or straight or otherwise, sexual attraction or no, it's "do you want to watch this person zip around in spandex and say dumb shit written by screenwriters terrified of not having a job next week?"
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:29 PM on July 3, 2010


Whatever, as long as they get rid of Kirsten Dunst.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:36 AM on July 4, 2010


It's just hard for me to imagine anyone other than Toby as Spiderman.

I dunno, when I think of Spider-Man I think of someone nerdy and quippy who can't stop himself from appearing upside-down in the top-right of any given comic panel. Toby had "nerdy" and "upside-down" covered but wasn't really very quippy.

disclaimer: I have read very little "classic" Spider-Man, but I like Bendis' Ultimate books
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 3:42 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


It's just hard for me to imagine anyone other than Toby as Spiderman.

Personally, I always found him very forgettable in the role. He just never clicked for me. Unfortunately, Garfield looks to be too pretty for the role. Anyway, I lost interest in the franchise already. I'd be perfectly happy if Hollywood never again made another comic book-derived movie. It's just getting tiresome.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:13 AM on July 4, 2010


The reboot fad won't die at least until they reboot Star Wars. And they will.

I assume they're skipping the Origin Story? Cause I am sick of them.

Amen. Everybody already knows the origins. More importantly, for any character with longevity (Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, etc.), their origins are among the least interesting of the thousands of stories that have been told about them. And most importantly, the reason those characters have longevity in the first place is because you can pick up a comic at random and 'get' the character without needing to know his origin.
posted by cribcage at 7:12 AM on July 4, 2010


One of the rules on Batman: The Animated Series was they would never, ever do anything connected to the origin story. You could obliquely reference it, but that's it., cause he's BATMAN, everyone knows who Batman is.
posted by The Whelk at 7:15 AM on July 4, 2010


B:TAS is the peak of onscreen superhero culture, really. Nothing that came before or after can compare, and doing so is a little unfair. Honestly I have no idea how something so good managed to get itself made.
posted by Artw at 7:20 AM on July 4, 2010 [2 favorites]


If You're So Smart How Come You're Not Rich? is easily the best Riddler story ever cause damn how do you make that character make sense?

Baby Doll and Clayface creeped my shit out as a kid. That stuff sticks with you.

and the invention of Harley Quinn was one of the best things to happen to the franchise.

"I'M JUST TRYING TO HAVE A NICE DAY!"

posted by The Whelk at 7:24 AM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


Aaron Johnson's Kick-Ass was a pretty good powerless Spidey, given that Kick-Ass is basically "What if... Spidey had no powers and lived in a Mark Millar written universe where Batman is mass murderer."

there was some talk of him taking the role which might have been a bit weird after that.
posted by Artw at 7:25 AM on July 4, 2010


Yeah Parnassus showed that Garfield had massive range (complete opposite from Eddie Dunford over in Yorkshire), and I decided he was my new-favorite-actor-who's-younger-than-me, but I fear that Peter Parker might be a bit too close to Anton, and this might pigeon-hole him.
posted by Football Bat at 8:00 AM on July 4, 2010


Meanwhile, over in another corner of the Marvel movieverse, folks are agitating for Isaiah Mustafa as Luke Cage.

No, wrong, nuh-uh. Luke Cage is clearly meant to be played by the similar-deodorant-commercial-appearing Terry Crews.
posted by Amanojaku at 5:35 PM on July 4, 2010


Donald Glover is @donglover on Twitter and I sometimes think I'm following someone called "dong lover".
posted by crossoverman at 8:23 PM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]


I definitely highly enjoyed the tale of Pavitr Prabhakar (great NPR interview with Gotham CEO Sharad Devarajan)...

Although its innovations seem trivial, India's reworking of the Spider-myth brilliantly enhances the painful irony of the American original. Whereas Ben's murder is a matter of pure coincidence, Bhim dies because he had the courage to confront precisely the same evil that his nephew wouldn't. In both instances, the punishment for selfishness is the death of a loved one. Yet in India, that loved one is also a martyr whose death becomes the embodiment of the ethos to which Spider-Man must aspire
.
....
At first, the suggestion that Pavitr has a destiny that he must fulfill may strike some readers as un-American. In the land of opportunity, we reject out of hand the notion that individuals must resign themselves to their fate. Instead, we believe that there are no limits to what can be achieved by a combination of hard work and ingenuity.

Yet is the concept of destiny really so foreign? Was it not under the banner of Manifest Destiny that the young United States claimed for itself the Great Plains and the northern reaches of Mexico? Was it not Ronald Reagan who constantly reminded the citizens of the United States that they had a "rendezvous with destiny"? To what else did George W. Bush refer to in his second inaugural address when he stated that "History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the author of liberty"?


- Weekly Standard 'review'

Review-review: review, review, Weekly Standard review (Marvel Comics and Manifest Destiny)

Changing elements of things makes things different! This can lead to new and unexpected teachable moments and story directions.
Anton was depressing and glum, un-communicative of his real thoughts... Peter Parker has exuberance and wit, a speedy mind, a quickness, and yeah maybe he is a bit of a loner, and sad sometimes, but he gets out of that shell before he even puts on the costume for the first time; he cheers himself up by chatting himself up, Parker spits out what is on his mind, even if it is a 'lame' pun, or taunt to some madman. I am sure the person they chose is nice, but it really wouldn't have been terrible to mix it up. It will suck if they go with the "he is actually a total depressive person, and so he doesn't communicate with anyone , and he keeps his thoughts to himself, like they kinda did after the first movie, it just leads to unbelievable scenarios where people get into danger because he's "too down on himself" - like part 2 where his powers disappear unexplainably (because he was sad?).
Earlier this year, Sony said the movie's plot will take Parker back into high school and will focus on, "A teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises." Spider-man will begin filming later this year and is set to be released the July 3, 2012.
yep-
posted by infinite intimation at 8:37 PM on July 4, 2010 [1 favorite]




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