Marc Webb to direct 'Spider-Man'

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.

Comments

[Medontknow]

Yeah ... that's what America wants. Spidey to take on the challenges of acne and prom instead of the Kingpin and Lizard.

[amar]

this movie is gonna suck

[JP]

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.

[Mesays]

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.

[Matt]

Where the hell are they getting the $80 million budget info? I highly doubt this movie will cost less than $100 million.

[cheap memory cards]

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....

[Joe V]

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!

[Getaloadofthis]

@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!

[California Justise]

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!

[Lisa Tsering]

Teen angst. Just what we need more of. Greaaattt.

[Screw the ultimates]

Ha! Spider-Man meets Twilight is exactly what they're going for, in 3D... and maybe with a little Avatar thrown in. Jeez, not an original bone in the studio's body. Then again, they aren't looking to be original or critically acclaimed, they just want money. The thing is, these comics became iconic for a reason. So far only Brian Singer, Jon Favreau, Sam Raimi and Guillermo Del Toro have succeeded in capturing the right balance of elements. What we need a reboot of is the sad Fantastic Four franchise. Jean-Pierre Jeunet/Marc Caro or Del Toro? Terry Gilliam??

[California Justise]

hey Screw the ultimates,

Really, Brian Singer? He changed everything about everything he did. He's a horrible example. And What about Chris Nolan? The director of the biggest comic book franchise ever?

The only good news in this story is that maybe DC Films will hire Raimi to reboot Superman & kick singer to the curb where he belongs.

[Screw the ultimates]

Singer is a good example of a non-fan coming in (picked by studio) and delivering with some taste and respect for the comics/characters. Albeit, in the case of the Superman film, Singer brought the love for the Richard Donner/Christopher Reeve creation rather than the comics. X-Men wasn't perfect, but I felt the first two films were genuinely great attempts. Which is how I feel about the Nolan/Batman franchise. I haven't been able to get on board with any of the rubber suit Batman films, but Nolan has taken the desperately needed first steps towards a great Batman film. A complete break from the mold is needed though (no pun intended).

Not sure if I like Raimi for a Superman reboot. He isn't as dramatically stylized as he once was and I think that's what Superman may need. I'd love to see Zack Snyder take a shot at the Superman universe.
As much as I was disappointed with Watchmen, I kept thinking, "wow, this is how a comic book movie should look!"

[Joe V]

@ Getaloadofthis
I agree that studios are in the business of making money, but, look at the track record studios have had adapting comic book properties. Where as very few these days are considered financial failures the movies that are more faithfully adapted do better and are more widely appreciated by the core comic book audience as well as the mainstream public.
Here is the url to the grosses:
http://boxofficemojo.com/genres/chart/?id=comicbookadaptation.htm

I'm not trying to say that it always works that way and I'm also not saying that some license shouldn't be taken to make a more cohesive and modernly plausible movie, but you can't just tear things up because some exec has an fleeting whim that they back with loose focus group data or their own "expertise".
As far as the 60's Batman film goes, you can write a book on the convoluted path that lead to that mess. However, please note the comics were adapted to fit the TV show more than the other way around. I would suggest reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(TV_series)#Genesis_of_the_series
for a brief summary.

I'll end things with this I agree to dis agree with your opinion.
In closing I would like to say that making a wheel out of wood instead of stone is just making it out of a different material. It's still a wheel. You can call a square with a hole in it a wheel but it's not.

[Slayer]

I love the comment by JP. Hilarious!

and by Lisa...fuck twilight.

[Spidertical1]

Why lord why are they destroying Spiderman. Sony, Avi Arad and Laura Ziskin have tarnished a character that I hold very dear to my heart, just to see how much more money the can milk out of this cow. Terrible...., terrible, terrible. If this turns into Spider-light, I swear I will boycott this film.

[Casey]

So it's Smallville's Spider-Man? Good thing I've grown to like Smallville then. But it took loooog while before that happened, and I'm not so sure I'll like Smallville-Spider-Man anytime soon.

[dr. fate]

What a crock, I think greed is the force behind the whole deal, forget the reboot as this story has allready been told, and 3D sucks anyway, just get on with the movies and keep the orginal cast,
as i will just forget this reboot nonsense
and watch some other movie.

[MovieFreak]

This movie sounds more and more as if it should be a TV series - maybe they should look into that, instead of rebooting the series. Why fiddle with something that works and why so soon??? The last Spidey movie was released just a couple of years ago - if they waited oh say 10 years or so, then maybe, but not 'hot' on the heels of the trilogy.