Producers Avi Arad and Matthew Tolmach are the duo behind “Amazing Spider-Man 2”.
Q: Can you speak about your decision to hire director Marc Webb?
Matt: If you look at “500 Days of Summer” which is basically, the sample that we had to go on, that and him in a room, and a bunch of music videos.
Avi: Actually, he brought Marc to the table, so defend yourself. Go ahead.
Matt: In my own defense, I was reviewing him for another movie, that’s the truth.
Avi: Defending it to the office and he says this Marc Webb, so I thought that’s a good joke.
Matt: He is so ambitious; he is willing to change his name. I met Marc when I was in Columbia, over another movie that he wanted and he was talking about this other movie, in a way and talking about these characters in a way that was so specific to a sort of emotion and heart and character, which was what was so spectacular I think about “500 Days of Summer” so, I said to him, “look, you are not getting that job”, but … for reasons that I am not going to bore you with .. but I met with him and again and called Avi and said you got to come over because this guy Marc Webb is sitting inside of my office. The truth about any “Spiderman” movie … by the way, it’s a reason Sam Raimi got the job, too – they are very different people but it’s the love of the character, and it’s the ability to tell an intimate love story, character story about a boy who is struggling with what it means to confront the world and to have to struggle with getting a job, and having a responsibility and doing the right thing. That’s the heart of a “Spiderman” story. So, the mistake you would make, is if you hired someone who is like “Mr. Visual Effects.” It’s not that that isn’t a –huge– part of what these movies are, but you can help a director with all of that craft, but what you can’t invent with a director is this.
Avi: If you look at the history of Marvel he usually picked up fresh directors who come from the new generation that helped us make Marvel what it is and these are people who grow up on comics and earned enough pedigree to be given a chance to tell a small story, because everything else, you have effects supervisors, you have Sony animation, you have CG storyboard artists, we have previews, all the technical stuff, all that the director has to really know is what they want and to be able to comment, “No, that’s not how I saw it”, and you work with him … but, making the scene on the High Line, “don’t do this, don’t do that”, you either have it in you, or it’s not going to happen. We have been very fortunate … what you remember from the movie is the relationship between the actors.
Q: Whose idea was it to put New York in as another character in the movie?
Avi: New York was always part of it … if you look at the comics; you see nothing but New York. Stan grew up in New York, Empire State University, Empire State right, Dailey Bugle, Daily News, it’s a replica, very real replica of his life. That’s a character in the comic, so it’s a character in our movie.
Matt: You know, that’s what you get if you shoot here for a hundred days versus shooting here for ten days and picking up second unit or doing exteriors which is fine, and it has worked, but you don’t get the texture of it because you are not actually here. And, to recreate that intangible look and feel and even smell because we have smell coming out of the movie … They’re happy accidents and they represent life in New York City. So, whose idea was it? Obviously, it goes back to the original comics and then it was New York’s own very own very aggressive tax rebate plan that makes shooting here possible. Without it, we would be two guys saying, “God, wouldn’t it be amazing if you could shoot in New York and the studio would say yeah, let’s keep having that conversation from Toronto” … but, New York made it possible.
Avi: The MTA, the Bridge Authority, they were unbelievable. The New Yorkers loved it because we brought in tremendous amount of jobs at the time that it was probably the number one issue of the economy. We shot in Rochester, where any job is gold, and it also feels good. It really feels good …when you go and you see people happy to come to work.
Q: Did you have a lot of serve New York encounters as you were working there?
Matt: Yes, some of them get captured on the day, somebody yelling … When we were shooting at Madison Avenue there was something going on and the police cars were flying around and that’s all in the movie. People were really good to us, and I’d like to think we were good back … or whichever is the chicken and the hen, because there was a lot of cooperation, it’s tricky.
Avi: We were shooting in Brooklyn in a super orthodox neighborhood, at the Armory, in the middle of Williamsburg. And it was really weird to see how many comic book fans – the kids cannot bring it home of course, but we somehow got them to talk a little bit and their curiosity … I was shocked! … It inspires everybody and in every neighborhood, we had some great stories of little kids come around and it was inspiring.
Q: How do you think the fans will react to what happens to Gwen’s character?
Matt: It was always a challenge, but I think that’s what we were always excited about. We wanted to do this story justice and if you know the comics, but you know where that story goes. We think audiences want you to both be faithful to a certain degree, and then also invent things so that they feel unique to that experience. You want a reason to go to the theater.
Avi: I think we all feel that this scene, starting with Sally Field with the box, to the inevitable. It was done in such a way that it had dignity and hope. If you can turn something like that into hope, that’s a victory, because it tells people, “You can continue, actually, it should make you stronger and more resolved about believing in what you believe in.” That was important in accomplishing this scene, it wasn’t about the physical act of it, it’s the fact that it was not in vain and it happens… it happens to heroes every day, unfortunately.
Q: This movie seems like it was scaling up a bit, in terms of all the action sequences and all the special effects.
Matt: We felt really liberated, coming out of the last movie where we felt an obligation to tell the origin story again and, so what comes with that is a certain amount of screen time where he is not Spider-Man and all the boxes you have to check along the way. Coming out of that, we felt like we did that, we are really proud of it … now, we are free to tell a Spider-Man story in whatever way we want to tell it. A big part of that was, two things – it was having fun, which is a big part of Spider-Man, so the tone of it, right from the beginning of the armored car chase, tells you that it’s going to be fun again, and he loves his job, he is good at it, he has come to his own in a really real way. We also were really conscious, about building up Oscorp and the idea that there is this place, in New York, which is from whence, really bad characters come. They are not always bad, but somehow they seem to go that way, which is the complexity of Marvel villains. So both of those things gave the movie a bigger more buoyant feel and that was something we were very consciously wanting after the first movie.
Avi: Also, we found a very good connection, you have “Electro”, who is Spiderman’s biggest fan and he knows it, and he knows how much he loves him, it’s very clear, and then it becomes his greatest enemy – the disappointment, the anger. And, the other one is Harry of course.
Q: What makes these characters stay true to their core but feel very of the moment?
Avi: So, we are expected to take something as iconic and good for you in a good way and bring it to our generation. It makes sense for Peter to be in the middle of what he is doing and get a phone call. That’s the problem with phones, and if you run out of battery, then again, that’s the problem with phones. So how does modern technology fit into the life … I can tell you that fifteen years ago, if there were phones, and there were car phones, Peter wouldn’t have had it – not affordable! Peter still cannot have a car, not affordable, not for Peter … so these are the elements that we must keep because of his commitment to the gift he has been given. He cannot spend his time actually promoting his own career, and making more financial security for his own life.
Matt: If you look at Harry, look what happens to Harry … look at the technology around what happened to him – a suit that heals. That science that’s come a long way from SandMan being radiated, but there is a certain constant I think, and it’s true in literature, it goes back to Frankenstein; it goes back further than that, which is the fear of change and the fear of science, and this other thing…the over reachers – the people that misuse science and so the science changes and it does in our movie, but what’s constant is that dynamic where you have Peter Parker, and Spider-Man who always end up on the right side of complicated moral and ethical decisions, and these villains who are very oftentimes scientists or somehow science ADJ. They work in the building and they make the wrong decision about how to use that science and that’s a constant in our ongoing conversation about science.
Avi: There is a little thing in this movie that is very clear, that Peter, without science, would have lost to Electro. So here, being the geek, I believe he went to science because the only thing he did know is that his father was a scientist … it’s kind of honor the memory underneath to feel close. In this movie, it is very clear, that … Gwen is probably the smartest girl in a superhero ever portrayed, as it should be. When comics got started they didn’t know that women could not do anything else but smile and get dressed and she helped him not to be decimated by a superpower.
Q: Now it’s time for Mary Jane right? Is there any pressure, after Emma Stone’s brilliant work?
Matt: The shoes are always going to be a very tough one to fill. Our love of Emma Stone and of Gwen Stacy…is enormous. Once in a while you feel like you have gotten to work with somebody who just transcends and that’s the way we feel about her. The way she transcended this role, just being around her every day – that just doesn’t happen, Emma Stone doesn’t happen very often and…so we are blessed to have been a part of that. It will be very challenging.
Q: Do you have the next Mary Jane?
Matt: We don’t know what we are going to do as yet, honestly, with that.
Avi: Spider-Man had lots of women in his life. He didn’t connect with any one of them really. He had very interesting women in his universe, especially if we take it forward into today; he does have many of them.
Q: In terms of where you are taking all this, you know how all “The Avengers” individual movies have to play into the broader avenge mythology. It used to be that “Spider-Man” was just a singular thing. Could you talk about how this “Spiderman 2” plays into the broader mythos that you guys are planning?
Avi: Spider-Man will always be a salutary hero – one by design and he has two personalities – Spider-Man and Peter Parker – he has to hide one at all times, one or the other. So he cannot be a member of a team really, he can do a cameo in a team but he is too big to do that, but what he does have in his universe are the most interesting villains anywhere. With fantastic backstories with connections to either Peter Parker, or Spider-Man. He is the sheriff in town and because he will never kill anybody, these guys go to jail, they don’t die. So, they become bigger enemies and then they have a common denominator, hence the “Sinister Six.” So it all makes it more and more interesting and there are so many pieces to the puzzle that are yet to happen.
Q: Any broader plans to go beyond direct Spider-Man sequels?
Matt: You know, we have talked about “Sinister Six,” we talked about “Venom”- we are making those movies, so, the answer is yes. They all come from the Spider-Man universe. They are all characters. … We were very conscious of the idea of Oscorp … and bleeding that out into the world and setting it up. And, we are very deep in conversations with Kurtzman and Pinkner about where to go next. That’s the magic of having this group (all of them are working together and separately on different iterations in different movies) is that, there is going to be a lot of cross over and the universes are going to make sense.
Q: Is it hard to strike a balance with the vision for having a more light-hearted movie, when there is also great destruction?
Matt: I think that honestly, the magic of movies like this is that you can hit highs and lows. I think if you are continuously hitting –fun— people get exhausted. I think fun comes in conjunction with hardship and sometimes tragedy and comedy live very closely together. Part of what Peter Parker’s journey is always about is he lives very close to the troubles – not only his troubles – but the troubles of the city and those have to feel very real in the movie. There has to be real jeopardy for the people of New York. We talk about that all the time.
Avi: And it is interesting because in this movie and when take all the parts- it’s really dangerous. I lived in New York during the blackout – it wasn’t fun. The point of it is that even to the audience in the movie and the audience watching the movie, the fact that there is a Spider-Man, make this incredibly realistic depiction of a disaster manageable because Spider-Man is going to come in and fix things up. So it doesn’t become a very jarring tragedy because that also would be too much of it. It’s about having this guy who is probably going to help us somehow.
Matt: The message of the movie is “hope”. So what you have to do with your audience is take them to a place and they can identify with…that feels hopeless, and show them that in fact there is hope even in the darkest moment and so, you have to navigate that.
“The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is now playing.
