CBR: Spidey 4 Director Found?

[CBR News]

Only days after Raimi and Maguire walked from the biggest superhero movie franchise of the decade, the word is out that director Marc Webb has been offered a shot at his own Spider-Man film trilogy at a much lower cost than the original team.


Full article here.

[Gabe99]

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN

From /film:
Marc Webb To Direct New Spider-Man Trilogy!?

From Risky Business:

Marc Webb taking on ‘Spider-Man’ reboot

Marc Webb has finalized a deal to helm the new “Spider-Man” movie for Columbia.

The studio last week scrapped the fourth installment of the web-slinging hero under director Sam Raimi and star Tobey Maguire and decided to reboot and scale down the franchise.

While unlikely names such as James Cameron and David Fincher were floated (when was the last time those made a scaled-down movie?), Webb quietly rose to the top of the list of candidates.

Webb became a sought-after director with “(500) Days of Summer,” his comedic romancer for Fox Searchlight starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, earning him praise for the realistic way he portrayed a modern relationship.

Webb set up a series of projects since “Summer,” among them “Age of Rage” at Searchlight. It was his Fox projects that were major hurdles in the deal, as his next movie was expected to be for that company. Fox had to allow him to bow out of his commitment before a deal could be made with Columbia.

Webb, who has options on two sequels, will now tackle a Jamie Vanderbilt script that sees a “Spider-Man” movie that will look and feel very different from the big movies that went before it.

The plan for the movie is to be in the $80 million range and feature a cast of relative unknowns (so you can quash those Rob Pattinson or Gordon-Levitt rumors at this point). And the story will be pared down to center on a high school kid who is dealing with the knowledge that his uncle died even though the teen had the power to stop it.

The touchstone for the new movie will not be the 1960s comics, which were the inspiration behind the movies by Raimi, who grew on up on them, but rather this past decade’s “Ultimate Spider-Man” comics by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Bagley where the villain-fighting took a back seat to the high school angst.

Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin are producing the new movie, which will begin production this year.

This going to be good. I hope Bendis gets a shot at writing the script.

[Hoss]

I enjoyed 500 Days of summer and have no doubt Webb can get the human/social aspect of Spiderman right. My big question is whether he has a strong sense of action and tension or not?

Though it would be neat if Peter Parker listened to The Smiths (500 Days reference).

[RobotKeaton]

I could totally dig Joseph Gordon Levitt as Peter Parker. I just hope they bring J.K. Simmons back as Jonah.

[Steffen]

And I'm sure this quick decision has NOTHING to do with the fact that the guy probably comes cheap and the studio can pretty much make him walk to the beat of Sony's drum.

Ah well, at least it ain't Brett Paint-by-Numbers Ratner. I've already given up on this series with Sam walking off the project. Thank God Marvel has it's own studio now - here's to Thor, Cap & Avengers!

[meethraa]

NOW that dude's SNL performance at the beginning is starting to make more sense....

[invasionforce]

This is Hollywood trying to spot trends, but probably missing the bigger picture (pun intended). I am sure there are executives at Sony who see an opportunity to turn Spider-Man into the “Twilight” for boys. But it’s not that simple. The last I heard, the average comic book reader is 24 year old man. No man who is 24 years old or older is going to think a movie about a 15 year old Spidey is cool, and even 15 years olds don’t feel like they relate to a nerdy kid their age. Teen boys want an image that is inspiring; they want heroes they can aspire to be like. What works on the pages of “Ultimate Spider-Man” is not necessarily going to translate to the screen. “Ultimate Spider-Man” is a nostalgia trip for older readers, but I don’t think nostalgia is going to work with the immediacy and visceral impact of action adventure super heroics on the big screen. I can’t think of any successful action adventure films in recent decades from “Star Wars” to “The Matrix” to “Avatar” where the hero is a teenager.

[Jared]

I can’t think of any successful action adventure films in recent decades from “Star Wars” to “The Matrix” to “Avatar” where the hero is a teenager.

Is Harry Potter action/adventure?

[J. Robb]

I can’t think of any successful action adventure films in recent decades from “Star Wars” to “The Matrix” to “Avatar” where the hero is a teenager.

Spider-Man, Star Wars, Back to the Future, E.T., Transformers ... that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more.

[Themasething]

I just hope they bring J.K. Simmons back as Jonah.

I agree with this. The man was 100% perfect for the role.

[Greygor]

Spider-Man, Star Wars, Back to the Future, E.T., Transformers ... that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more.

Spykids, Gremlins, Goonies, Last Starfighter, Karate Kid, Lost Boys?

[Ilash]

This is actually a pretty cool and interesting decision. I was worried that they would replace Raimi with a Michael Bay type director but Webb couldn't be further from that. It should be interesting to see where this goes. Especially if they do give it a more Ultimate Spider-man feel.

[rocky123]

I was a little worried myself figuring that (500) Days of Summer was some teen romantic comedy, which it was, but not having seen it I was unaware how good it apparently is (8.1 on IMDB). Makes me wonder if this could lead to Joseph Gordon-Levitt taking on the role of Pete/Spidey. He is a very good young actor who was excellent in The Lookout and Brick which I saw, please ignore him as Cobra Commander as that whole movie was just terrible.

[ChrisIII]

Well, there is some precedent for this (Directors not known for action proving to be pretty good). Jon Favreau directed MADE and family films (Zathura, Elf) before IRON MAN, which had decent action.


On the other hand, there was director Marc Foster on Quantum of Solace, a director who beforehand had did mainly dramas but proved pretty bad on action scenes.


I'm a little worried that Webb mainly seems to have music videos in his filmography. On one hand, music videos could spawn excellent directors like Fincher, on the other hand you could end up with some of the worst.

[edhopper]

Jon Favreau showed in Ironman that if you get the human elements right the action will take care of itself. Since a lot of that is second unit and FX, they can get it right.

My big question is will they do it in Avatar-like 3D?