Watts the idea for Spider-Man’s future

The young director of the latest Spider-Man episode has been doing his best to not ‘freak myself out’. It’s been a wild ride for director Jon Watts. Tasked with bringing everyone’s favourite web-slinger to the big screen in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Watts has entered the swirling $11.7 billion-grossing (Dh42.9 billion) maelstrom of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And as every super hero knows, with great power...

“I tried to not think about it while I was making Homecoming so I wouldn’t freak myself out,” said Watts, laughing into the phone from New York City in the middle of the most intensive media tour of his young career.

On July 6 (in the UAE), just a few days after his 36th birthday, the writer and director will open Spider-Man: Homecoming in which the most popular comic book hero of all time officially becomes part of the highest-grossing film franchise in history. It is Watts’ third feature film.

And with a budget of $175 million, it cost 35 times more than the indie that landed him on Kevin Feige’s radar two years ago. That was Cop Car, a Sundance thriller about auto-stealing kids starring Kevin Bacon, that got him in the door at Marvel

WHAT A MARVEL

“I was excited just to go to Marvel,” said Watts. “I kept my drive-on pass, it was such an exciting thing. Do you remember that Simpsonsepisode where Bart goes to the Mad Magazine headquarters in New York? That’s what I felt like it was going to be like: You walk in, there’s Iron Man making coffee...”

The Colorado native had a background in music videos, commercials and comedy with episodes of the Onion News Network and Clown, a little-seen Eli Roth horror movie, under his belt. But he’d also been developing a coming-of-age script based on his own childhood, which he now says placed him in the right mindset to reimagine Peter Parker as a 15-year-old junior superhero, wrestling with his still-developing powers after getting a taste of the big time in Captain America: Civil War.

The first thing Watts did to find a new way into the iconic character? Re-read the Spider-Man comics, starting with his introduction in the August 1962 issue of Marvel Comics’ Amazing Fantasy.

“That was the best thing I could have done, because it revealed to me what was so exceptional about Spider-Man in the first place,” he said. “What people forget is that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created him and introduced him into a huge world of superheroes that they had already been building. The idea was, let’s get a regular kid’s take on all of this.”

Watts and his onscreen Spidey, British actor Tom Holland, then 19, landed their life-changing gigs around the same time. Watts travelled to Atlanta to watch Holland film his scene-stealing cameo in Civil War, a pivotal screen that won over fans and critics and set the stage for Homecoming, the first of three contracted films Holland has reportedly signed on for.

HOLLAND’S PERSONAL TOUCH

“What was great was that we were both total greenhorns. Neither one of us has been in this situation before,” said Watts. “He’s never been the lead of a movie, let alone a huge summer franchise tentpole. I’ve never directed something of this scale.”

The film begins with a replay of Peter’s Captain America: Civil Warairport battle as seen through his millennial eyes — i.e., captured on his smartphone, a detail partly inspired by Holland’s own antics.

“When Tom got the job I was looking at his Instagram and he was already filming everything he does,” Watts explained. “He’s trying to get the job by filming himself doing backflips in his backyard, and that idea definitely originated somewhere around there: He’s filming everything, so Peter should be doing the same.”

When Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) and his driver Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) drop Peter back home with his new Spider-Man suit and a pat on the head, the eager web-slinger yearns to graduate from friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man to Avenger big leagues. Meanwhile, he’s also dealing with the agony of teen life as a sophomore science nerd with a crush on a senior girl (Laura Harrier) who is trying to fend off the school bully (Tony Revolori), compete on the school’s academic decathlon squad and keep his best friend (Jacob Batalon) from spilling his secret identity to the entire world.

Peter’s frustrations dovetail with those of Michael Keaton’s Vulture, a self-made supervillain who sprang from a revelation Watts had while binge-watching.

“I watched all the Marvel movies from the beginning sequentially with the idea in mind of, ‘Where is Spider-Man in this world?’” said Watts. “What does a regular human being who lives in New York City know? What does the world think of Tony Stark?”

STEADY PACE

Filming began almost a year ago in Atlanta before production moved to New York City, where it wrapped a little more than three months later. These days you read about young directors pushing up against the constraints of multibillion-dollar franchise filmmaking, most recently Lego Movie and 21 Jump Street helmers Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who were fired from Disney’s Han Solo Star Wars movie after reported creative differences with their Lucasfilm bosses.

“I can only speak for my own experience, which has been really great,” said Watts with a knowing laugh. “I learned pretty early on in a creative endeavour like this, where a lot of people are working together for something that doesn’t really come together until all the pieces are in place, to just try to be as clear and as articulate and as transparent about what I am trying to do as early as possible. Because you’re not going to be able to fool anyone once it’s up on a big screen for everyone to see.”

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Inside Sony’s Marvellous deal

Sony Pictures Entertainment was running out of options for its most valuable film franchise, Spider-Man. After 15 years and five movies of web-slinging, and $4 billion in global box office, the studio was struggling to give the character a reset. So in early 2015, Sony’s top two executives, Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal, flew to Florida, home of Marvel Entertainment Chief Executive Isaac Perlmutter, who’d spent months lobbying Sony to let his company, owned by rival Walt Disney Co, reboot the hero.

It was an extraordinary proposition for Sony but it was finally willing to swallow its pride to get a Spider-Man movie made by the most successful superhero producer ever, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. Over lunch at Perlmutter’s swanky oceanfront residence, the executives hashed out budgets, sequel possibilities, and how Spider-Man would interact with other Marvel characters.

Homecoming is the first Spider-Man movie to exist in Marvel’s broad “cinematic universe” of interwoven superhero movies. Marvel has long wanted to bring Spider-Man into the fold through its movies. And exceedingly rare. Rival film companies typically don’t team up on productions, except in unusual circumstances. In a famous example, Fox turned to Paramount to help finance James Cameron’s Titanicwhen the 1997 movie went over budget.

Sony, which financed the project, will reap the profits and keep its most important piece of intellectual property alive. The studio has weathered a series of misfires that triggered management shakeups. Sony also hopes to use Spider-Man’s popularity for spinoffs, including Venom and Silver & Black, about female characters Silver Sable and Black Cat.

Disney-owned Marvel stands to benefit because it owns the lucrative merchandising rights to Spider-Man, which it acquired in 2011. It also gets to use Spider-Man in its own movies, including last year’s Captain America: Civil War.

Homecoming is the third Spider-Man reboot since 2002, and audiences have already rejected several would-be franchise revivals at the multiplex this summer, including Alien: Covenant and The Mummy.

The Sony-Marvel deal was unusual because little money changed hands. Sony paid Marvel an undisclosed producers fee, but Marvel won’t receive any of the profits. Instead, the companies are sharing their most popular characters. For Homecoming, Sony is getting a boost from Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man (aka Tony Stark). Marvel and Disney got to use Holland as Spider-Man in Civil War and in the upcoming Avengers movie, Infinity War.

Sony acquired the film rights for Spider-Man in 1999, and released the first movie, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, in 2002. Sony produced two successful Spider-Man sequels, one in 2004 and the other in 2007. Disney bought Marvel Entertainment in 2009 for $4 billion, but not Spider-Man.

Then Sony rebooted the property in 2012 with The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. That film and its 2014 sequel delivered diminishing returns. That left Sony’s leadership in a pickle.

The studio was considering ways to keep the property afloat, according to Sony insiders. One idea was to reintroduce Spider-Man through the studio’s planned production of Sinister Six, about a group of super villains.

The idea to bring in Marvel had been in the works long before the deal. Feige first pitched Pascal in 2014, during a lunch meeting, to let him make the next Spider-Man movie.

Though Pascal was reluctant, the two executives continued to discuss the matter, working out what a Marvel Studios Spider-Manmovie would look like. Feige wanted to bring Spider-Man and Peter Parker back to his essence — a teenager fighting crime alongside Avengers and dealing with grown-up themes, who also has to get to class on time. Finally, Pascal was came on board. — Ryan Faughnder, Los Angeles Times

source: GULF NEWS