The Amazing Spider-Man director Mark Webb talks chemistry, comics and setting
by Doc on Apr.17, 2012, under Movies
Yahoo! Movies recently interviewed Mark Webb, the director of the upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man, the reboot of the Marvel franchise starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and premieres June 30th.
On Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone’s instant chemistry:
“We screen tested them together, and she’s very funny and really quick and snappy. I remember the first time we screen tested them — I don’t think they’d met before, really — and he took a minute for him to get back up to speed with her because she was so funny. And then they really brought out really great parts of the other’s performance. Of course, it was there, and that’s why we cast that dynamic. It was really great to watch it on screen.”
The trickiest element of Spider-Man’s world from the comics to capture on screen:
“To create something that’s funny and whimsical, but also has real emotional stakes. That’s the real tricky part is to make it all feel grounded even though he is doing something, even though he’s swinging through the streets and he can do things that no other human can do. But still give him a hard time when he’s relating to his aunt or his girlfriend, and all those dumb little things that we all have to deal with when you don’t have that mask on. I think reconciling those two universes was tricky, but I think that people really react to it.”
The film takes Peter Parker back to high school. Why the high school setting is important for the Peter Parker character:
“There’s an adolescent quality to a lot of the “Spider-Man” [comics] that I liked, that is really important in terms of the DNA of the character. He’s like an imperfect guy. You know what I’m mean? He is a kid, and he’s always kind of making mistakes, and he is not so sure about himself all the time. I felt like the authentic place to start that was in high school. And I think there’s something about the way you feel about the world at that age that makes things much more raw, and I thought that was really fun to explore more cinematically.”
Check out the complete interview here.