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The third installment of the blockbuster franchise pits our hero
against Venom, Sandman, the New Goblin and his own out-of-control
ego. Sam Raimi and the cast explain why Spider-Man's back -- In
Black.
"SKY JITSU!" Anyone harboring doubts about whether director Sam
Raimi can still get his geek on for Spider-Man 3, due out May
4, need only ask him about the spanking-new goblin glider. "Harry
Osborn's new goblin develops a form of glider called the sky stick,"
he says. "The old one, that's your generation. That clunky old
Cadillac.
He now fights with the thrill of sky boarding and the kill of
jujitsu. Sky Jitsu! Sky Jitsu!"
Wearing a spidffy three-button jacket over a striped dress shirt and
blue jeans, Raimi sits on a couch in his production office on the
Sony lot, brushing his tousled hair back with his hand as his eyes
widen with excitement. "That's actually ripped off from a trailer I
saw years ago, for this movie Gynkata. They go, "The thrill of
gymnastics! and then they show some guy flipping. "The kill of
karate!" And I love how that say 'karatay.' It was so cool."
Replicas of Spider-Man in various sizes adorn the room, and a Green
Goblin helmet idols menacingly on the desk. PREMIERE has been to
Raimi's office before, while he was making the first Spider-Man in
2002, and it appears the same bottle of Maker's Mark whiskey is
still in its place of honor. "Oh, that other one was probably 50
bottles ago," Raimi says with a smile and a sigh, as he brings the
conversation back to the goblin glider. "We're going to have our own
style of fighting, like that trailer promised." he says. "With this
board, he can whack Spidey and jab him and flip around. I really
wanted to take the battles to the skies." Jazzed by the image, the
47-year old directory gyrates slightly on this couch.
"That's him. That's where he's coming from." says Tobey Maguire, who
has played the webbed crusader in all three Spider-Man films,
when he hears about Raimi's excitement. "He's making movies for the
geek." If there were a holy trinity of fanboys-turned-blockbuster
directors, Raimi would be at the head (with New Zealand-based Peter
Jackson and that kid Bryan Singer at his side). First know for his
Evil Dead trilogy of cult horror hits, Raimi evolved into a director
of dark and disturbing dramas like A Simple Plan and The Gift. But
now, first and foremost, he's the king of the Spider-Man
franchise, which after two films has grossed more than $1.6 billion
worldwide.
"It's as if Elia Kazan is trapped inside of a gigantic
action-picture director's body." says Thomas Haden Church, who plays
Flint Marko (a.k.a. Sandman, a villain who can transform into sand
and shape-shift) in the third film. "Like, if Elia Kazan and Otto
Preminger had a baby."
Raimi insists that at it's core, Spider-Man 3 is an intimate drama,
even with a budget rumored to be in the astronomical $250 million
range. "What was important to me was Peter Parker; the love of his
life, Mary Jane Watson; and the terribly strained relationship with
his best friend, Harry Osborn," he says. "And how that love triangle
would continue to develop. I thought anything that distracted or
detracted from that would be a problem."
And that, adds Raimi, even more than the Goblin's new glider, is
what keeps him "fresh" for Spider-Man 3. (Most geeks are wounded
romantics, after all.) "The best way to entertain the audience is by
getting to know the character in a much more intimate way. I want to
know who he is, what his weaknesses are. I want to know how
miserable he feels. I want to know where he next has to grow to as a
human being."
RAIMI HELD OFF ON STARTNG THE Spider-Man 3 script until after
Spider-Man 2 was in the can. “I just sat down with my brother
Ivan [with whom he collaborated on the first two movies], and said,
“Where are our characters now? And what is it that they still have
to learn about life?” The brothers picked up on the final image of
Spider-Man 2, a close-up of Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst) looking
worried as she watches Spidey, who she now knows is Peter, taking to
the air to battle crime with a boyishly triumphant yell. “She’s an
insecure girl who made a bold decision to be with the man she loves
despite everything that it could cost her.” Raimi says. As for
Peter, “The poor guy is ready to go on this prideful journey: he
thinks he’s got it all figured out, but he’s just a dumb kid.”
The third installment begins with Spider-Man no longer getting bad
press – he’s become a beloved hero. “It’s a pretty classic story
line,” says producer Laura Ziskin. “Now you’ve got power,
everything’s kind of okay, you’ve got the girl and people like you.
And [now] what temptations are you subject to? He loses his way and
he has to find his way back.”
In a turn of events that will make shrinks and comic-book fans alike
drool, Raimi revises Spider-Man history to create a painfully
complex knot in Peter’s psyche. It turns out that the shooting death
of his Uncle Ben in the first movie, which he thought was his fault
because he didn’t stop the thief when he had the chance, was really
the work of the thief’s partner, Flilnt Marko, who jumped out of the
getaway car unnoticed. So when Spidey cornered the thief and let him
fall through a window to his death, he was punishing the wrong guy.
(Go ahead, look back at the scene in Spider-Man, and you’ll see that
the change is viable, if a bit of a stretch.)
When [Peter] finds out that he’s fallible for this murder, he’s so
prideful, he just focuses on destroying the man who really killed
Ben.” Raimi says. “He’s unwilling to face the sins of his past. Mary
Jane can’t stomach this. She was ready to take on villains and the
risks, but not his ego.” It doesn’t help that Mary Jane’s acting
career hits the kids while Peter is beating his red-and-blue breast.
“Peter’s in a different place, and his journey’s different.” Says
Maguire, who appreciates that Raimi shook things up for his
character. “I don’t want to see the same things. I don’t want to see
him in four scenes haggling with [Daily Bugle editor] J.J. Jameson
over the price of a picture.”
At the newspaper, Peter will encounter new competition in Eddie
Brock (Topher Grace), a slick photographer who gets good shots of
Spider-Man and who will eventually develop the alter ego of Venom, a
villain with some arachnid powers not unlike Spidey’s. “What if
someone who’s very similar to Peter didn’t have as great a father
figure as Uncle Ben?” asks Grace about Brock. “What would have
happened if that kind of power fell into the wrong hands?”
And then there’s Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard), whom Spider-Man
saves in the movie’s first action sequence. Gwen is a fan favorite;
in fact, Raimi considered making her Peter’s main object of
affection in the first Spider-Man. “But upon further
examination we realized the only potent thing about Gwen, if you
read the books, is her death and the aftermath on Peter,” Raimi
says. (In the comics, she dies in the bridge fight that was a
highlight of the first movie.) “If you really look at her as a
living character, she was a little vacuous compared to Mary Jane.
But for Spider-Man 3, it was time to introduce more of the
Spider-Man family.”
Raimi credits the inclusion of Brock to producer Avi Arad, who until
recently was the chairman and CEO of Marvel Studios. “He said the
fans want to see Venom,” Raimi says. “I come from a different
generation. I read the comic books in the ‘70s, where it was Green
Goblin, Sandman, Electro, Mysterio, the Vulture. It was not until
the late ‘80s that Venom came about. But Avi said, “I’m telling you,
they’re waiting for him. Don’t be selfish. Spider-Man is everyone’s
myth, not just yours.”
Brock’s transformation into Venom is the result of a an alien
“Symbiote” organism that infects its host, making him more powerful
but also unleashing his dark side. But first the symbiote latches
onto Peter, who, because of his recent bloodlust for Flint Marko, is
a receptive host. It stains Spidey’s costume black before a subway
action scene (Arad promises it will top the aboveground train
sequence from the second movie) in which Spider-Man battles Sandman.
The blackness enhances Spidey’s powers while clouding his moral
imperative to do as little harm as possible. “He can shoot webs
farther, he can run faster, jump farther,” Raimi says. “He’s more
powerful and unfortunately a little more careless.”
Although Sandman and Venom have exciting and frightening powers,
Raimi says it’s their complex motivations to do evil that matter
most. “I wanted to humanize the villains. Because it’s really the
story of Peter Parker learning that we’re all sinners, and none of
us are right or wrong.”
Also riding the wave of complex emotions is Harry Osborn (James
Franco), who has inherited the mantle of the Green Goblin from his
father. Though Harry and Peter come to airborne blows, Dunst says
that their conflict is essentially personal: “We’re all trying to
find ourselves in this film. The relationships – especially me,
Harry and Peter – are full of history, and we could take the story
to a much more intense level.” She adds, “There’s a lot more story
going on in this one. I feel like every time we did a scene, Sam
explained the entire film to everybody so that we’d all understand
where we were at.”
TO REALIZE HIS VISOIN, RAIMI DREW FROM both likely and unlikely
sources for the casting. “Gwen Stacy is this buxom blond, and I’m
this red-headed character actress,” says Howard (The Village,
Lady in the Water). “I was really, really shocked. Especially
when I saw pictures of the character. I was like “What? Aren’t there
a million other woman walking around in Los Angeles right now who
actually already look like this?” Says Ziskin, “My joke is, I cast a
blond as a famous redhead, and a redhead as a famous blond. There
were a lot of hair issues.”
Church, too, thought “Really?” when he got the call: after all, he
had just reinvented himself as an indie star in Sideways.
Though he hadn’t been a fan of comic-book movies, he signed on
because of Raimi. “I saw there’s an acuity to Sam as a storyteller,”
he says.
Grace resembles Maguire and so was a more obvious choice to play a
kind of doppelganger to Spider-Man. And he was steeped in Spidey
lore as a kid. “I remember I’d be reading comic books and my mom
would say, “Do your homework. Are you really going to use that when
you grow up?” he says. “I told you so, Mom.” He admits that he was
elated to be cast. “Watching Tobey in the first and second ones, I
thought, “Man, that must be the coolest job ever.”
For his part, Maguire, 31, enjoyed going to the dark side in the
third installment.
“We had a lot of fun with that, Sam and I,” he says. “The first days
we were trying to figure out what the tone of that would be. We
wanted it to be energized. We had to play with exactly where we
could go to make a distinct character turn without it being totally
out there.”
Raimi was also intent on creating a greater sense of “vertigo” in
the shooting of Spider-Man. “I wanted to get into his environment in
this one and sour with him.” He says.
“On the first one, they were still getting a handle on how to shoot
the scenes of Spider-Man flying through the streets. The shots were
more static.” Franco says. “And now, Sam has been able to make it
more dynamic by countering camera moves. As an audience member,
you’ll have more of an experience of being up there.”
For Spider-Man 3, Raimi says, Maguire multiplied his action scenes
“by like, four-fold.” One extensive sequence has Harry fighting with
Peter, who doesn’t have his Spidey suit on. “It was more work for
me, but it was fine.” Maguire says of the maskless battle. “It’s
actually good when you’ve got the faces in there, because you get to
feel for the characters and react more.
“It is cool for me and hard on Tobey, “ Raimi notes. “He’s got to do
everything he could possibly do as Spider-Man. Stuntman can fill in
for the wide shots, CG can fill in for the outrageous stuff. But
he’s had to do a tremendous amount of physical action, of rolling,
tumbling, leaping, landing, punching, fighting, falling.” It’s a
touchy subject, because Spider-Man 2 almost imploded when there was
talk that Maguire couldn’t return because of back problems.
“We’re always careful with him,” Ziskin says. “I mean, he has
chronic problems and he works on it and he has a chiropractor, and
we’re careful in terms of what we ask him to do.”
For Spider-Man 2, the production developed new gear that helped
relieve the strain of dangling from harnesses. As for the costume
itself, “It got a little more comfortable,” Maguire reports. “Some
of the undergear was more uncomfortable in the first one, and then
the second one it got better, and then the third one I think I ended
up getting some orthotics in the bottom of the boot.”
Raimi can talk about the suit in the most minute detail—hey, at
around $30,000 a pop, each one has an impact on his bottom line –
but for Spider-Man 3, he found himself obsessing about a new
element. “Everything in movies is so drawn out to the outrageous
detail” he says. “We looked at like 16 different sands. And then
combinations of sand. We had to photograph it close up, seeing how
it reacted to light. ‘What’s the best way to light falling sand?’
How does it pile?’ We had to bury people alive in this sand, so we
had to have a substitute material that could double for it. Because
you can’t really bury people alive in sand. We ended up using
ground-up corncobs, and so we had to choose something that had a
similar quality. We ended up with something called Arizona sand.”
He adds that about one out of every five shots involving sand are
the real deal, and the others are computer-generated. “We really
want to give the audience something they’ve never seen before.” To
this end he enlisted Sony Pictures Imageworks to come up with a
shape-shifting Sandman who could blow away the previous CG sand
effects of the Mummy films—something Arad says they accomplished
easily. (“Oh forget it,” Arad scoffs at the notion of comparing
them.)
Even a cursory review of the first two Spider-Man films shows that
computer technology can progress in leaps and bounds. “We look at
some of the early shots we did in Spider-Man and they’re just
nowhere near … We didn’t know as much.”
Ziskin says. “The animators learned as they went, and I think it got
much better in 2. And as the artistry improves and the technology
improves, the director’s demands increase. So no one can rest on
their laurels.”
“SO WHAT’S THE PRICE ON SOMETHING like that?” Raimi asks. We’re now
sitting with the Spider-Man visual-effects team, watching a
five-second sequence on a large screen above the editing facilities.
“Black Spidey,” as Raimi calls him, enters a bank that has been torn
up by a robbery.
Raimi wants to know the cost for a slight FX tweak on the lighting
of Spider-Man’s costume. Someone in back says, “Less that $10,000
and more than $5,000,” and adds that the fix might not even work.
These are the little decisions Raimi has to make. Today, he’s
already given notes on a sound design mix he’s just heard and sent
an artist back to the drawing board after the 3-D mock-up of a
creature that Sandman morphs into differed from the 2-D rendering.
And after this visual-effects meeting, he’ll spend after this
visual-effects meeting, he’ll spend 22 hours with his brother Ivan
rewriting a scene that they’re shooting next week.
“Let’s not spend the money then,” Raimi calls out in the darkness.
It’s ironic that the director would care about a few thousand
dollars in a $250 million dollar production. Although no one will
confirm the final budget, Ziskin attributes any increases to the
visual effects and the fact that “both above and below the line, the
movie gets more expensive in terms of just the talent involved. We
have really first-class talent in every department, many of whom
have been with us. We’re a family.”
Clearly, the cumulative cost franchise adds to its cumulative costs
(Maguire’s fee alone has reportedly jumped from $4 million for the
first one to more than $10 million for each sequel). And the
franchise s unusual in that the same director and lead actor have
been holding the reins for all three films. It begs the question,
even before we’ve seen number three, if there will be a fourth.
“I’M SURE THEY’LL KEEP MAKING Spider-Man pictures,” says Raimi, who
has signed up for each one individually. (Maguire was contracted for
all three.) “Amy [Pascal, Sony cochairman] told me that she would. I
love Spider-Man. And I love working with Kirsten, Tobey, James. I
don’t know if Thomas and Topher will be around in the next one, but
probably Bryce will be. But I have to make sure that when I’m done
with this picture I’m really still fascinated with the character. At
this moment I’m fascinated with him. Whether or not I will be in six
months when the movie’s done I couldn’t say. And I absolutely would
not have anything to do with the picture unless I was hungry to tell
the story.”
Could Raimi imagine doing Spider-Man without Maguire?
“I’d rather not.” He says, and then, “No, I couldn’t imagine it.”
Would Maguire do another without Raimi?
“That would be a long shot,” the actor says. “But you never know, I
guess. It would be a whole different thing. But that’s not to say
there wouldn’t be a reason to do that at some point if the right
story was out there. I feel like Sam would be involved even if he
didn’t want to direct it.”
Raimi does seem quite attached to his cast; he’s watched them grow
up over the course of three installments. “Remember on the first
movie, Tobey and Kirsten had a thing?” he asks. “I’m so dumb,
because I met with them for dinner one night during the shooting to
talk about the next day’s scenes. And I go, ‘Okay, well, that’s it
for the meeting.’ And then I ask Kirsten, ‘Can I drive you home?’
And they look at each other and she goes. ‘No, no, I’m going to play
a game of Touch 10 with Tobey,” I don’t know it was some game. I
thought, ‘That’s weird. She’s got to work tomorrow.’”
Five years later, Maguire is engaged to Jennifer Meyer, a jewelry
designer (Peter gives one of her heart-shaped lockets to Mary Jane
in Spider-Man 3) and daughter of Universal president and COO Ron
Meyer; the couple had a baby girl in November. Raimi himself has
added another child to his brood, which now numbers five (the newest
arrival was born just two nights before our interview). Last year,
Franco went back to UCLA to get a degree in creative writing. As for
Dunst, she says, “I just felt more confident as a collaborator on
this one. I think ‘cause we’ve all grown up together. Our
relationships have become more open and honest and I think that in
turn made for a richer experience for all of us.”
“The Spider-Man stories have always been coming-of-age stories,”
Raimi says. “I feel like the movies must draw upon what happens in
our lives together. So to watch Tobey mature as a human being, just
seems fitting. I’ve seen him go from a single guy to… He’s no longer
swinging, you know.”
Did Raimi say no more swinging? Not to worry – the movie gods will
no doubt find millions of reasons to keep Spider-Man web-slinging
for years to come.
© Tom Roston, Premiere 2007 |
