Tag: Spider-Man

Six minutes of “The Amazing Spider-Man” will screen before “Men in Black III” in IMAX 3D theaters, Sony announced Tuesday. The Andrew Garfield-starring reboot of the Spidey film franchise has been the topic of much anticipation and criticism, with some fans looking forward to Peter Parker’s reappearance on the big screen and others defending Sam Raimi’s Tobey Maguire-starring trilogy, which wrapped up only five years ago. The new film, which hits theaters July 3, is directed by Marc Webb (“500 Days of Summer”), and stars Emma Stone as love interest Gwen Stacy, Denis Leary as her father, NYPD Capt. George Stacy, and Rhys Ifans as villain Dr. Curt Connors, also known as the Lizard. The “Spider-Man” trailer, released in February, features some very un-”500 Days of Summer”-like set pieces and in true reboot fashion, promises “the untold story.” Meanwhile, “Men ...

Long before Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire ever went up the wall,  Nicholas Hammond amazed young fans by leaping across the screen as the amazing Spider-Man. The actor was no stranger to pop-culture sensations — he played the Friedrich von Trapp kid in “The Sound of Music” (one of the three biggest hits in film history, if you go purely by the number of tickets sold) and figures prominently in a classic episode of “The Brady Bunch” — yep, he was the guy who broke a date with Marcia Brady when she got bonked on the nose with a football. Guest writer Mark Edlitz (who recently wrote about Broadway’s Superman for Hero Complex) interviewed him. HC: This is the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man and the 35th anniversary of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” the CBS series that you starred in it. There’s also a new onscreen Spider-Man ...

A new trailer for Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” is out, finally offering a good look at the film’s supervillain — the Lizard. In the comics, gifted scientist Dr. Curt Connors becomes the reptilian monster after injecting himself with lizard DNA in a limb regeneration experiment. As the Lizard, he longs for all humans to be transformed into super-reptiles. Connors (Rhys Ifans) might be after the same thing in the film, asking someone, presumably Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), “Are you ready to play God?” The trailer then shows the Lizard releasing billows of green gas into the air as a news announcer says, “There’s been a biological attack on New York City.” The trailer also gives fans a glimpse of some sweet Spidey gadgets. A quick scene reveals inventive Peter Parker’s trial-and-error process building the web-shooters. And a fancy gadget ...

Denis Leary blows through Hollywood job titles the way he used to chain-smoke cigarettes during his Boston comedy club days: actor, screenwriter, producer, author, television pitchman, animation voice actor and, believe it or not, fashion-show emcee and national anthem singer. The next Leary résumé line arrives July 3 with the release of “The Amazing Spider-Man.” “Emma Stone’s dad,” said Leary, referring to his role as the gruff, on-screen father to the film’s lead actress. “That’s the point in my career I’ve reached. It will be ‘Emma Stone’s dad’ now, which, by the way, I’m fine with being. She’s the real thing; she’s fantastic.” Stone, coming off roles in “The Help” and “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” plays Gwen Stacy, the girl who falls in love with Peter Parker, the brainy teenager who is spider-bit by fate and becomes the hard-luck title hero. ...

SPIDER-MAN AT 50: It’s the 50th anniversary of Marvel’s greatest icon, and all year Hero Complex will talk to notable names about the character’s success and singular appeal. In this installment: Kevin Feige, the president of Marvel Studios, talks about his favorite issue of Spider-Man. Before the Marvel Comics of the 1960s, the typical comic book superhero might have to stand up to bullets, boulders, magic spells or even the occasional alien missile but none of them ever got hit with hard luck in their personal life quite the way Peter Parker did in the July 1967 story called “Spider-Man No More!” The tale, by writer Stan Lee and artist John Romita, appeared in the 50th issue of “The Amazing Spider-Man,” found young Parker reeling from the news of his Aunt May’s failing health but also dealing with his sinking school grades and a bounty put on his head by the ...

This post has been corrected, as detailed below. With Sunday’s premiere of “Ultimate Spider-Man,” Disney XD looks to adds a new chapter to the character’s long history as an animated success. It was 1967 when ABC aired the first episode of the original “Spider-Man” series and the catchy theme song (with lyrics by  Paul Francis Webster, the three-time Oscar winner who wrote “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing”) helped propel it to the status of pop-culture classic. We caught up with Marvel pioneer Stan Lee to talk about his recurring voice role in the new show and the wall-crawling hero’s sticking power. HC: You’ve been making cameos in Marvel feature films since “X-Men” in 2000 and we’ll see you this summer in Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” —  but you’re taking it to a different level with this role in “Ultimate Spider-Man.” SL: That’s right, we’re not kidding around anymore, this ...

This summer, the wall-crawling hero Spider-Man celebrates his 50th anniversary, so in more ways than one, the Marvel Comics creation is a pop-culture icon that sticks. That should be nothing but good news for the filmmaking team behind this summer’s “The Amazing Spider-Man,” but instead it views that history as part of its challenge — just like the towering shadow cast by the previous Spider-Man films and their $3.5-billion box office success. “Our movie — with this hero, at this time — has to be great, and we know we have to show people that we know what we’re doing,” said producer Matt Tolmach, who — like director Marc Webb and stars Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone — is making his first Spider-Man film. “But we’re excited about that because we know what we’ve got.” Webb, Stone and Tolmach will ...

SPIDER-MAN AT 50: It’s the 50th anniversary of Marvel’s greatest icon, and all year Hero Complex will talk to notable names about the character’s success and singular appeal. Today: A few thoughts on the hero from Damon Lindelof, the co-creator of “Lost” and screenwriter of “Prometheus,” ”Cowboys and Aliens” and the upcoming “Star Trek” sequel. GB: It’s the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man, is he one of your favorite characters? If so, why? DL: Seriously, who doesn’t like Spider-Man? Tell me who that person is so I can punch them. Why is he so special? There are so many reasons. First and foremost, his entire origin story is wrapped around the idea that he made a horrible error in judgment… that his own selfishness resulted in a terrible tragedy that he is personally responsible for. This would be the equivalent of Kal-El callously ignoring Krypton’s impending ...

This is the 50th anniversary of Spider-Man and the webslinger seems to be everywhere — a record-breaking Broadway show, the upcoming feature film, a new video game this summer, etc. You can add an animated television series to that list with Disney XD’s April 1 premiere of “Ultimate Spider-Man.” The promising new series will be spotlighted in a March 17 panel at WonderCon in Anaheim but Hero Complex contributor Jevon Phillips caught up with Marvel Entertainment’s chief creative officer, Joe Quesada, for some early insights. JP: What’s the new “Ultimate Spider-Man” animated show about, and will it follow the comic book exactly? JQ: Well, it won’t follow the comic book exactly. The goal really is to show Spider-Man to a new audience and demonstrate to them what’s wonderful about Spider-Man and add a little twist to the story. Something obvious to ...

SPIDER-MAN at 50: This is the 50th anniversary of the Marvel icon and all year Hero Complex will be talking to notable names about the character’s success and singular appeal. Today: Darwyn Cooke explains how he found a connection — and a career — in early Spider-Man comics. If you look his audacious career, you might think Darwyn Cooke doesn’t believe in the concept of sacred ground — this is, after all, the writer-artist behind an upcoming prequel to “Watchmen,” an acclaimed revival of Will Eisner’s “The Spirit”  and IDW’s ambitious, ongoing adapations of Donald Westlake’s Parker novels — but the Nova Scotian said that in his youth there was a holy text that arrived and inspired his entire artistic life: “The Amazing Spider-Man” King Size Special No. 9 back in 1973. “For me, the greatest Spidey story I ever read was the first. It was ...