Amph Spider-Man & SSU Films (Madame Web, Venom 3, Kraven, Beyond the Spider-Verse)

Does the studio want to introduce The Lizard, but Raimi insists on any other random, third-reate supervillain other than him?

Slimy!

 

The Lizard is NOT a third rated character.

Neither was Sandman, and if they'd actually developed his character in the third film, instead of cramming as much in there as they could, he would have been just as appreciated as the holy Dr. Otto was in Spiderman 2.

 

Exactly!

It's like in Super Mario Bros. 3, when you're like "Damn, I'm going for that last coin, and then you fall off a cliff, or get pwned by a Koopa Trooper, and your friends are all like "That's what you get for getting greedy!"

It's the same with the producers. Spidey fell victim to the thirdfilmitis.

Producer 1: Okay folks we need another baddie for this next film. We gotta make him bigger and badder than Doc Ock.

Producer 2: Ya know what would be cool? Is if we had two bad guys for this one! We just won't spend any time on character development, I mean, after all, I've never actually read any of the Spider-Man comics, so I'm sure the villains aren't all that interesting, anyhow.

Producer 1: Yeah, good thinking! Multiple villains worked great for Batman Forever! Let's run with it!

Producer 3: Should we put nipples on Spidey's costume?

Producer 1: Do it!

Producer 2: Now onto this Venom character. It looks all snarling and threatening, but I think we should keep Topher's voice, otherwise the audience won't know that it's Topher that's become Venom.

Producer 1: Brilliant! Throw some disco in there somewhere, too. Disco is the one thing the first too films were missing, and kids are into disco these days, right?

CREATIVE MEETING FAILURE!

 

Well to be fair the first film had nipples...just not Spider-Nipples.

 

I missed that. Course, I wasn't really looking for nips, either. At least not on Spidey.

 

I'm not particularly keen on the Black Cat, there are a number of better more interesting Spidey characters to put in. I suppose if she was there to aid him it might be OK seeing as Harry died so Peter is rather on his own.

If Raimi wants to please the fans, he needs to make Carnage a lot better then Venom was.
Carnage needs to be like The Joker only with superpowers, a scary psycho killer.

The Lizard is great and could be an interesting challenge seeing as Parker would want to help Dr Conners and not destroy him.

A secondary villain could be Rhyno or Shocker.

Mysterio & The Vulture or Morbius could be the primary villains.

 

[image=http://blog.taragana.com/e/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/kirsten-dunst-in-spiderman.jpg]


Kraven's last Hunt with the Lizard would be awesome.


And I'll refuse to see a 4 or 5 with Carnage.

 

Ugh. no please. Carnage is just a knock-off of a knock-off and, if anything, should be saved for Venom's solo movie. Spidey's rogues gallery is full with classic villains: Electro, Lizard, Kraven, Shocker, Chameleon, Rhino, Scorpion, Vulture... I mean, he has one of the best rogues gallery in comics, alongside Batman's.

 

While you may not be a fan of the character I take issue with the fact that she isn't interesting. While I can't attest to her treatment in the upcoming film, her comic counterpart has a rich interesting history. Not to mention the dichotomy of her relationship with Spidey is not only sexy its complicated and intriguing. Their cute back and forth exchanges of quips and flirtations as she Spidey pursues her as a criminal and she pursues Spidey as a lover...that alone is worth watching. Add in the complexity of the nature of her crime (trying to free her dying criminal father so he can die with loved ones rather than a cold concrete cell) and colour me intrigued. And that's only the foundation of her origin.

I don't know about you but that sounds like a fun addition to the film.

I will add my name to the list of people who don't want Carnage. I like the character but its a derivative of a derivative. Lets move on to something else.

 

I agree on both counts.

 

In a perfect world, we would have had the Gwen Stacy story arc from the getgo.

 

In a perfect world we would have had the Gwen Stacy storyline from the get-go, MJ would be the romantic carmudgeon and actually LOOK like a model, Spidey would be charged with hilarious one-liners and quips firing a hundred times a minute and most importantly Gwen wouldn't be killed. I know, radical notion right?? Guess what. The character can exist without being defined by her death.

 

He also happens to be the the most powerful badass psycho killing machine out of all the Spidey villains. He is a clever creation, they took Venom and created a crazier deadlier foe who could everything Venom does and more.
I'm not in favour of him in a film if he's done as badly as Venom was, but done the right way he would be one of the best on-screen villains there has ever been.

Of course, there are lots of alternatives.

It's a shame that the Daredevil movie used Kingpin before Spider-Man. Kingpin & Smythe would be formiddable enemies for Spidey.

 

He is also from an era of comics most fans today loathe where bigger, badder and more intense was the name of the game. Hence why Bendis gave him a spectacular "death" in New Avengers to mark the end of that style of comics. Outside Carnage's lethality he doesn't offer a lot to the character. There is no mystique, there isn't a lot of underlying characterization, no motivations for the character other than to kill. And lets face it this film will be at most PG-13. Spider-Man will forever be a kid friendly property. It seems like a big mistake to introduce a character of that intensity and water down the aspect of him that's interesting. A villain needs to be more than an obstacle for the character, they need to have a character themselves. Most other Spider-Man villains have some kind of character element that makes them worth exploring for two hours. Green Goblin is the delusional split-personality of Peter's best friend's father, a relationship and personality that is rich with dramatic possibility. Doc Ock represents an analogue of Spider-Man gone wrong, and is a character with whom Spidey can relate. Venom has a very personal vendetta against Spider-Man and again is in many ways his antithesis. Part of what makes so many Spidey villains intriguing is the relationships, their personality, their power-set and how it relates to Spidey. There needs to be an added dynamic to the character outside of how cool they look and how threatening they are. What makes it interesting to put them in the movie is to explore why they are so threatening.

As such I don't see Carnage really adding anything interesting.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing some classic crossovers.
[image=http://screenrant.com/wp-content/uploads/ryan-reynolds-deadpool-wade-wilson.jpg] [image=http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2004_The_Punisher/2004_the_punisher_012.jpg]
Perhaps Ryan Reynolds or Thomas Jane would oblige?



Of course, it would require some damn good writing to justify such a move (EDIT: especially Jane, as it was his walking out of the Punisher sequel that relegated it to being a 'reboot')....and unfortunately the Spiderman films thus far aren't exactly bastions of creative genius.


EDIT 2: And for Godsakes, get Reynolds into the proper clothing!
[image=http://captainotter.today.com/files/2009/10/deadpool.jpg]

 

The actors may appear but their characters are tied up with other companies for the time being still, so a cross over is still unlikely.

 

True....Spiderman is Sony, Deadpool is Fox, and Punisher is Lions Gate.




Don't you just hate corporate politics?

 

Well they never had much of a choice. Marvel made the deals they could that they felt were the best and when the dust settled different characters were under different company umbrellas. That's the benefit of the Disney deal. Though they are respecting the deals that currently exist, eventually the deals will end and all properties will revert back to Marvel, who now have a single film empire to deal with. In a way its win win. Certain franchises get to continue for the time being so I can have more Raimi Spider-Man, more Favreau Iron Man and a the few Avengers films still in the works and eventually we will get a whole new universe of films that CAN crossover as necessary or stand alone.

 

I'm not going to pretend to know how the movie industry works, but don't the deals that Sony, Fox, etc. have renew themselves every time they make a new movie? So, as long as they keep revisiting the property in a timely manner they keep the contract? IIRC, that's why that horrible unreleased Fantastic Four movie was made in the 90s. Whichever company held the rights at the time (may have been Fox, my memory is hazy) wasn't prepared to make a real movie so they made that cheapo one so they liscence renewed...or something.

I just worry that the quality of the movies will go down as the quantity goes up. If Sony has the options of A) Make a crappy Spider-Man movie that will still make $300 million or B) Loose all rights to the property and let Disney, a rival, make movies, it's not going to be a hard decision for them.

 

That may be. I am not clear entirely about the legal details honestly. I don't know about a renewal for each film. It was my understanding that certain studios had the properties for so long and certain studios had the properties for so many films. For instance Sony had Spider-Man for at least six films, and they intend to continue making them. Fox on the other hand has announced a whole slew of X-Men films and stated they want to continue with both Fantastic Four and Daredevil. Whether they have to go back to the tables each time is unclear to me.


The 94 Fantastic Four movie was made by Roger Corman's company. Not sure who distributed it, but the contract, as I understand it is with him.

EDIT: My bad, I was wrong. It was produced by Constantin films, who asked Corman to come in and help produce the film for cheap. A company called New Horizons was set to distribute it but it was never meant to be seen by anyone anyways (though the production team thought it was ).

 

From what I understabd, Corman had to rush that film, that was never meant to be distributed, because they had a option on a sequal/s. They were going to make another first film, they just had to retain the rights on the option.

Most of the current contracts on the films are set up for a certain amount of sequels for a certain amount of years before expiration, and then the rights go back to Marvel, if not renegotiated with the studios that hold the rights now.

 

So if their contracts are for a set number of movies/years that's a good thing IMO. I'd much prefer to have all the Marvel characters under one roof so to speak. It has a lot of potential as the upcoming Avengers movie has already teased. I'm shocked Warner Bros. hasn't been trying to do something like this with the JLA long ago. But that's a discussion for another thread.

 

Control of all characters for movies by Marvel would be useful, especially for allowing stuff like the Avengers.

They could put Dr Doom in Iron Man & Kingpin in Spider-Man, as well as many other overlaps.

What I will agree on with Carnage is that in order to do him justice as a character on screen a Spider-Man movie would probably be 15 rated, which won't work seeing as kids wouldn't be able to watch it. In which case I'd say don't put Carnage in it, Venom already got ruined I'd hate to see Carnage go the same way.

Black Cat might offer more character development in the film but I don't see particularly spectacular fights between her & Spidey and the romance will start to take over too much of the screen time.

Characters like The Lizard or Morbius could be conflicted and have well developed stories yet still be badass and produce great specticle.

 

Frankly, I think it's best if the film franchises do not overlap. The comic continuity is convoluted and weird enough, keep the movies simple. Movie audiences aren't going to want to keep track of a bunch of separate storylines like comic book fans are used to doing.

As for the next Spider-Man villian, I hate to say it, but the Lizard just isn't compelling enough to carry a film as the main villian, in my opinion. Morbius might be, but most moviegoers aren't going to know who he is and some may be put off by that. Frankly, I don't know where the series can go after the last movie.