15 Bravest Creative Decisions In Comic Book Movie History

9. Basically Remaking Sam Raimi's Spider-Man - The Amazing Spider-Man

After negotiations broke down with Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire for a fourth Spider-Man movie, the decision was made to simply reboot the property with a new director and lead actor before the rights ended up reverting back to Marvel. Cue The Amazing Spider-Man, which hit cinemas in 2012, starring Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, with (500) Days of Summer director Mark Webb taking the reins. What's most surprising about this movie is that, rather than simply begin with Peter Parker in situ as Spider-Man, the movie retreads most of the origin story plot beats we'd seen just a decade earlier in 2002's original Spider-Man movie, namely the spider bite, Uncle Ben's (Martin Sheen) death, and Peter's acquisition of the suit. Did It Work? Not really. It again depends how you define the movie's level of success. It was a huge hit at the box office and did well with critics, though many decried the movie's inherent laziness in so brazenly regurgitating an hour's worth of story that we'd already seen executed perfectly fine in Sam Raimi's movies. Some have argued the necessity of repeating these iconic moments, but for viewers with Raimi's movie still relatively fresh in the mind, it stinks of taking the most safe, unimaginative route possible for a reboot.
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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.