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.
The studio holds sequel options on Webb, who 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.
Yeah ... that's what America wants. Spidey to take on the challenges of acne and prom instead of the Kingpin and Lizard.
Posted by: Medontknow | 01/19/2010 at 09:39 AM
this movie is gonna suck
Posted by: amar | 01/19/2010 at 10:02 AM
yea, this is gonna be fannnntastic. hold on while i jump for joy off a cliff with spikes at the bottom, which proceed to fall off a second cliff into a lake of fire.
how popular is that series anyway? i tried to engage; butt-lint is more enjoyable.
Posted by: JP | 01/19/2010 at 10:20 AM
OH... I get it ...
Studio Exec: Who's the hottest director right now that we can get for cheap?
Assistant: Marc Webb.
Studio Exec: Oh, that's brilliant. Spider-Man throws webs, doesn't he? Makes sense to me. Sign him before he makes another movie.
Assistant: He is a good director, but he has just one picture under his belt and it wasn't exactly an action film.
Studio Exec: Who cares? His name is Webb! Wait, there isn't anyone with last name "Spider," is there?
Assistant: There's James Spader.
Studio Exec: Hmm... maybe he'd be willing to change his name. I mean ... it's only one letter. Ha ha.
Posted by: Mesays | 01/19/2010 at 10:41 AM
Where the hell are they getting the $80 million budget info? I highly doubt this movie will cost less than $100 million.
Posted by: Matt | 01/19/2010 at 10:45 AM
Loved (500) days. It will be interesting to see if Webb can handle a big action picture.I know I sound like a broken record, but I hope the hiring of Webb means that we might get to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt play Peter Parker....
Posted by: cheap memory cards | 01/19/2010 at 11:24 AM
I love how all of these directors say "I'm going to bring my own vision to this!" or "This isn't going to be the bla bla bla you're used to!". Well guess what, nobody wants to see your take on things!
I might be out of line here but I think that everybody wants to see the characters treated in a way that's true to what they've come to know and love.
Quit trying to re invent the wheel!
Posted by: Joe V | 01/19/2010 at 11:46 AM
@Joe V,
Look, studios are in business to make money. (you know that). Not make fans like you happy. For them there is no point in spending 300 million to make a movie that only grosses 300 million. That's just not good business sense. Especially when there are so many quality story-driven movies being made for 80 mil or less that go out there and gross 300 million. The Spidey franchise as we knew it was only going to get more expensive, and the fan base was not going to get any bigger. Translation -- time to hit the reset button.
As far as your "quit trying to reinvent the wheel" comment, if people don't keep reinventing the "wheel", we never get from stone wheels to wooden wheels, from steel wheels to rubber wheels, from puncture-proof to water-gripping tires, from airless to...well, you get the picture. To put it another way, how do you think they got from the campy Batman movie of the 1960s, to the Tim Burton Batman of the '90s, to the mega hit Dark Knight movies of today? By reinventing the wheel!
Posted by: Getaloadofthis | 01/19/2010 at 01:08 PM
Worst concept EVER! Raimi made the genre what it is today, what a slap in the face of a master! I have no intention on seeing "Spider-Man: New Moon". Next thing we'll have is Tim Burton remaking The Godfather!
Posted by: California Justise | 01/19/2010 at 01:12 PM
Look, studios are in business to make money. (you know that). Not make fans like you happy. For them there is no point in spending 300 million to make a movie that only grosses 300 million. That's just not good business sense
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