The Avengers may dominate this weekend, but today is all about The Amazing Spider-Man. Sorry 'bout it!
Not only did we score our first good look at The Lizard this morning (holy green evilness!) but Andrew Garfield is spinning webs in a new trailer for the highly anticipated superhero reboot, due out July 3. We watched the preview in its full 3-D glory yesterday and caught up with the director, Marc Webb, to talk Spidey.
Here are five (more!) things we learned from the action-packed trailer with some extra scoop by the head honcho himself:
1. This isn't your parents' 3-D: Who needs Spidey senses when you have a third dimension?! And—when you see the trailer debut before The Avengers—you'll see that Webb is taking full advantage of it when it comes to Spider-Man's web slingin' fun. "The movie I designed as a 3-D movie," Marc told us. And with some help from a certain Avatar and Titanic 3-D helmer.
"James Cameron, who was incredibly generous with me early on, likes to play 3-D as depth," we were told. "I liked pushing the 3-D a little more so that it would come out at you. Because I remember as a kid watching The Creature from the Black Lagoon and those things coming out at you and there's something fun about that. And seeing an audience with kids and having them reach out."
2. It's like (500) Days of Gwen Stacy: Webb might seem like an unconventional choice to helm the blockbuster, seeing as his last film was the quirky Zooey Deschanel drama (500) Days of Summer, but he promises there's plenty of heart packed into the flick. "The interpersonal relationships that Peter Parker has are so simple and so domestic that it's a very fun dichotomy to play that big, massive spectacle alongside those very small moments," Webb reveals about the flashy trailer. "In a very real way, there's a small, intimate little indie movie at the heart of Spider-Man.
"I was always a Spider-Man fan, but I was a bigger Peter Parker fan," Webb gushes about Spidey's alter ego. "When you see the movie, I don't think anyone will be worried about the emotional part of it. There is an incredibly innocent and tender quality to Peter Parker. He's not a billionaire. He's not an alien. He's a kid..."
Got that Thor and Iron Man?!
3. Peter Parker's funny...for a reason: If you're anything like us, you were definitely chuckling when Peter got a bit sassy with the car thief ("You found my weakness! It's small knives!"). And Webb assures us there's plenty more jokes to come.
"That's something from the comics that I've always really been a fan of, but humor is a tricky thing because it's very subjective," Webb told us, though you should be prepared for some dark humor.
"[Peter's parents leaving] is how he gets that outsider status. And there's a sarcasm that comes from that and the quipiness," he continued. "That generates from this chip on his shoulder and he's a little bit mean and a little bit snarky. That's an attitude we can all understand and relate to. The humor comes from a very human, real, emotional place. It's not just slapped on."
4. The Lizard is real!: "When we shot those sequences, we actually shot a human," Webb revealed for how they created Peter's nemesis, The Lizard.
"There was a guy named Big John who is literally a big guy named John. He did a lot of the interactive stuff...Then we would replace him with the computer generated Lizard. Then the performance capture was done with Rhys Ifans...We would shoot Rhys in a similar environment and get his facial components to incorporate his performance into the lizard himself."
As for the other villainous forces in the trailer—like, say, that mysterious figure trying to figure out how much Peter knows about his parents—Webb played very coy. "Oh. You'll have to see the movie," he teased. "I wish I could show you more!"
5. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is already in the works: Even though the first film hasn't hit theaters yet, work has already started on the sequel. So which villain will Peter be going up against in the next installment? Will Gwen (Emma Stone) get some romantic competition for Mr. Parker's heart? Tell us everything!
"I'm so deep immersed in this one that I haven't really touched anything," Webb admitted to us. "There's talk but it's all just talk...I'm spending 18 hours a day finishing the movie, so I can't give you any insight into that. I wish I could."
Either way, he was thinking ahead way back when: "We spent a lot of time with the writers coming up with the back story and with a world that could hold different stories if the series is ongoing," Webb assured us.
But let's focus on the movie we have now.
What do you think of the new trailer: Were you left saying "Tobey who?!" or is Andrew Garfield and gang falling far short of amazing? Sound off below!