Marvel's The Amazing Spider-Man is a 2017 live-action superhero film produced by 20th Century Fox and Marvel Studios based on the popular character by the same name. It is the twenty-first film within the Marvel Cinematic Universe released worldwide on July 7th 2017.
Production
Spider-Man is by all accounts the most popular character in the entire Marvel Comics library. Having the most widely sold merchandise in the world of any superhero and leading dozens of comic books, video games, and animated series, he received his own feature length movie in 2002 that helped established comic book source material as a legitimate venue for film. The Spider-Man license, for these reasons, was unsurprisingly heavily cherished by 20th Century Fox and for a long time prohibited to be used by Marvel Studios.
Kevin Feige nor anyone in the greater Fox Disney Corporation expected this to change. The Spider-Man films were very profitable and there was too much risk of brand dilution crossing him over with more risky Marvel heroes such as Iron Man or The Hulk. As Marvel Studios continued to grow however, the Spider-Man film saga fell on hard times. Though financially successful the 2010 Spider-Man 4 was panned by critics and performed significantly less than it's equally criticized predecessor, Spider-Man 3. The IP was still successful though, albeit with diminishing returns. Despite fan outcry to do so 20th Century Fox still refused to let Marvel Studios work with them to create an MCU Spider-Man, opting instead for a stand alone reboot. In 2013, the lead actor of Fox's Spider-Man saga, Andrew Garfield had dropped out as had director Marc Webb. Finding replacements proved to be challenging as Garfield and Webb themselves had been hired to replace Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi respectively. Putting what was considered the same continuity through new creative lenses and recasting the main hero a third time was considered dangerous and would possibly do irrevrsible damage to the brand.
Marvel Studios on the other hand was making billions with The Avengers and Iron Man 3 that there were executives at Fox who wanted to work with Marvel Studios to reboot Spider-Man on film in whole. Many were in opposition to this idea but after continuous delays for Spider-Man 5's production, and Fox's desire to continue making Spider-Man movies, their options were becoming limited. In late 2014, a deal was finally made for a Spider-Man reboot to be made by Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox for a 2017 release date and an appearance in their other upcoming joint MCU joint venture Captain America: Civil War.
Tom Holland was shortly cast as the new Spider-Man as was described as being based on the Ultimate interpretation of the character. Feige insisting he wanted to explore his time in High School much more significantly and to tell Spider-Man's origin story in a way that much more heavily reflects the comics, such as Gwen Stacy being a love interest before Mary Jane Watson as well as exploring his classic villains once again. Phil Lord and Chris Miller were hired in 2016 to direct the MCU Spider-Man film revealed to be titled The Amazing Spider-Man in the Phase 3 slate at Comic Con summer 2015. Filming began in mid 2016 and The Amazing Spider-Man came out in theaters July 7th 2017.
Cast
- Tom Holland as Peter Parker/Spider-Man
- Paul Giamatti as Oliver Octavius/Doctor Octopus
- Logan Marshall-Green as Herman Shultz/Shocker
- Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson/Deadpool
- Halston Sage as Gwen Stacy
- Asa Butterfield as Harry Osborn
- Remy Hii as Eugene "Flash" Thompson
- Zendaya Coleman as Liz Allen
- Marisa Tomei as May Parker
- Damian Lewis as Norman Osborn
- JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson
- Jennifer Connelly as Mary Octavius
- Whoopi Goldberg as Principal Kelly Cox
- Martin Starr as Roger Harrington
- Rob Lowe as Ben Parker (Flashback)
