James Franco Slams Amazing Spider-Man: "It's Like, 'Why?'"

Heartthrob offers up a tepid review of last summer's new Spider-Man flick

By Josh Grossberg Jan 30, 2013 5:03 PMTags
James FrancoGADE/AKM-GSI

James Franco's not so high on The Amazing Spider-Man.

Having played Harry Osborn/Green Goblin in Sam Raimi's original trilogy, the 34-year-old thesp was naturally asked at last week's Sundance Film Festival for his thoughts on director Marc Webb's reboot, which he acknowledged seeing.

Needless to say, his Spidey artistic sense wasn't tingling.

"Eh," Franco told MTV with his signature smirk and a shrug. "I mean, they could have strayed a little bit more from the original. It's like, 'Why?' Well, I guess they made a lot of money. Congrats. But good for them…Sam and I moved on, we made Oz."

The Oscar nominee's opinion is in line with a number of critics who assailed The Amazing Spider-Man for essentially weaving the same origin story as 2002's Spider-Man with a few minor tweaks like a different villain—in Amazing's case the Lizard instead of the Green Goblin. However, audiences didn't seem to care that much, as the blockbuster raked in a whopping $752 million worldwide.

Franco did give a thumbs-up to actor Dane DeHaan, who'll be taking over the Osborn role in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, saying the latter was "good" in such movies as Lawless and Chronicle.

James, meanwhile, hits the big screen as the titular character in Oz the Great and Powerful, which will reunite him with Raimi and is slated for release March 8.