The General story:
In Queens, New York, nerdy teenager Peter Parker goes to school, hangs out with
his only friend Harry, and pines over the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson.
Never one to be noticed, Peter is suddenly bitten by a spider on a school science
excursion, goes home, and falls ill. Eventually climbing out of bed, he’s
vision is good enough to lose the glasses, he’s grown a six pack overnight, and
can shoot web from his wrists. Peter continues to discover his new abilities,
which also including scaling walls with no problem at all, then the opportunity
comes up to do some good in the community. His bravery takes him to the limit
of his fears, and he is thrust into the role of super hero when his uncle is innocently
gunned down. And so, Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man.
What influenced the
movie: Based on the comic book series created by The Late, Great Stan Lee
and Steve Ditko and first appearing in comic books in 1962 but the Spider-Man
movie was a long time coming. The idea for the character was as ambitious as he
was popular with comic book lovers, but it seemed the film making technology to
get him right had to wait until special effects caught up with the idea. Certainly
not as big or global as Batman or Superman, given they had been around on pages
since the late 1930’s, and had
already been portrayed in a series of successful films… but, Spider-Man would
swing onto the scene in 2002 and show audiences that he was a serious contender
on the superhero stage.
How the movie
influenced the 00's: The superhero genre of movies we all know and watch
today, wouldn’t have happened without first and foremostly, the success of the
first “X-Men” movie in 2000. That was big enough of a hit to greenlight
Spider-Man and the Hulk, but it was really 2002’s Spider-Man which sent super
hero movies into overdrive. The film adaptation got everything right; great special
effects, and the perfect casting of Toby Maguire in the lead role, who was
already familiar to audiences as the likeable kid next door in movies like “Pleasantville”.
His genuineness and ease of acting, made the character of Peter Parker likeable
and relatable, and also made us believe in his journey as not just a superhero,
but a teenager struggling with very day issues. The stand-out sequel “Spider-Man
2” followed two years later, proving lightning could strike twice. From 2005
onwards, it was all about the superheros as were treated to new versions of
Superman, Batman, and then the onslaught of Marvel characters beginning with “Iron
Man” in 2008. All those characters, and the shared success of Marvel and DC (but
more notably Marvel) can thank Spiderman for their luck and good fortune at the
cinema.
What makes it stand
out as a film of the 00's: Spider-Man was being filmed in 2001 and had
planned a scene to take place featuring the World Trade Centre towers. This would
be the first teaser trailer, showing a team of robbers fleeing a bank with
their steal, getting into a helicopter, and believing they had escaped, finding
themselves stuck in a web suspended in
between the Twin Towers. You can still watch this clip online, but for obvious
reasons it was left out of the movie. However, Spider-Man was the first major
blockbuster movie to be filmed and set in New York after the terrorist attacks
of 9/11. Having to use the skyline of Manhattan as a major feature in the film was
a sensitive topic now given the attacks on New York, but the film did well in
capturing the spirit and character of the city, and came at a good time, to
show the world that New York would keep on fighting, and the movies would keep
on using this great city and its people to tell stories.
Impact of the movie
still felt today: You would have to be living under a rock if you didn’t
know that Marvel is now the most influential and powerful player in the movies business,
with their ten-year rein beginning in 2008 with Iron Man, and each film and its
subsequent “Avengers” series going from strength to strength. The “first”
trilogy of Spider-Man films was very popular, and after the mixed results and critical/commercial
divide surround “Spider-Man 3”, the planned fourth film with Tobey Maguire and
director Sam Raimi both returning, hit a snag and died. It was only five short
years later, when the property was picked up again, with a new actor in the
role in Andrew Garfied and a fresh take on the character. 2012’s “The Amazing Spider-Man”
and its sequel were fine in their own way, but Marvel wanted Spider-Man for
their ever-expanding universe of characters and films. So they bought the rights
to the property from Sony and put the “third” rendition of Spider-Man into a Captain
America film, then gave him his own standalone film in 2017 with “Spider-Man:
Homecoming”. Proving the web slinger is certainly one of the most popular superheros
going around, he will continue to spin his web of tricks and play a part on the
movies on some level for a long time to come.
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