Oscar Outlook 2012: The Amazing Spider-Man

Like Batman Begins from seven years ago, The Amazing Spider-Man is hitting the restart button on its eponymous hero.  The window separating its preceding installment is smaller.  It was five years ago that Peter Parker spun his last web.  Audiences had a good eight years to recuperate between Batmans, which doesn't seem like much difference, but it's enough to feel.  The last Spider-man had disappointed a lot of fans and, frankly, I wasn't that into any of the movies.  The first film had the web-slinger bouncing around NYC like a video game character.  From a visual standpoint, he didn't look like he could exist in the world of film.  Even though it appeared improvements were made with the later movies, I felt bereft of any further anticipation.  And the third film seemed to suffer from what plagued the subsequent Batman movies of the 90s: too many villains spoiling the formula, among other shortcomings.  Sony decided to create  new origins story and erase all ill will, for fear of losing the Spider-Man property.

With exciting new casting prospects for Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) and using a lesser known, but developed character, from the previous films, it may or may not have been a mistake to recast the role of Dr. Curt Connors (aka The Lizard); Rhys Ifans will take over duties for Dylan Baker.  And, having watched the trailer, while Spider-Man looks realistic, some of Red Epic digital footage isn't so filmic making it somewhat distracting.  We'll  have to see if director Marc Webb, who charmed audiences a few years ago with (500) Days of Summer and fondly captured Los Angeles in a way never really seen before, can do the same for the New York City world of its favorite masked crime-fighter.

The supporting cast includes Martin Sheen, Sally Field, Embeth Davidtz, C. Thomas Howell, Campbell Scott and Denis Leary.  Steve Kloves (the man behind The Fabulous Baker Boys and the piano scene with Michelle Pfeiffer, was nominated for Wonder Boys and spent the better part of the last decade adapting the Harry Potter books) and Alvin Sargent (nominated three times, having won twice for Julia and Ordinary People, has worked on Spider-Man 2 and 3) fine-tuned James Vanderbilt's (Zodiac) screenplay.  Like The Great Gatsby, there are three (!) editors: Alan Edward Bell ((500) Days of Summer), Michael McCusker (nominated for Walk the Line) and Pietro Scalia (nominated for Good Will Hunting and Gladiator, won for JFK and Black Hawk Down).

Cinematographer John Schwartzman was nominated for Seabiscuit.  He worked on The Green Hornet, a couple of Ben Stiller, Nicolas Cage and Michael Bay films.  Production Designer J. Michael Riva got nominated for The Color Purple.  He has Django Unchained coming out and worked on Spider-Man 3 and the Iron Man franchise.  Set Decorator Leslie A. Pope nominated for Seabiscuit, also has Django Unchained and This is 40 coming out later this year.  She worked on Spider-Man 3, as well as a couple other Judd Apatow productions.  Costume Designer Kym Barrett has worked on The Matrix trilogy, The Green Hornet, and Speed Racer.  Composer James Horner has been nominated multiple times, most recently for Avatar, and won for Titanic's score as well as the song that makes Kate Winslet want to vomit.

The first Spider-Man got nominated for Visual Effects, which the second movie won.  The first movie got a Sound nod and when it changed to Sound Mixing, the second film also picked up a nod, as well as one for Sound Editing.  The only nominee they're retaining from any of those nominations is Special Effects Supervisor John Frazier.  It filmed the first third of 2011 in the L.A-area and New York.  Sony Pictures will release the movie on July 3.

poll by twiigs.com

Also on the Radar:

Anna Karenina     Argo     Beasts of the Southern Wild     The Bourne Legacy     The Dark Knight Rises     Dark Shadows     Django Unchained     Gangster Squad     Great Expectations     The Great Gatsby     The Hobbit     Hope Springs     The Hunger Games     Hyde Park on the Hudson     Lawless     Lincoln     Lola Versus     Lovelace     Low Life     Magic Mike     The Master     Les Misérables     Life of Pi     Moonrise Kingdom     People Like Us     Prometheus     To Rome with Love     Ruby Sparks     Savages     Seeking a Friend for the End of the World     The Silver Linings Playbook     Smashed     The Surrogate     Trouble with the Curve     Won't Back Down 


The Avengers     The Amazing Spider-Man     Men in Black III