‘The Amazing Spiderman 2’ Sequels: Marc Webb Begs Off From 'TASM 4!' Director Says ‘Three Is Enough As It's Beyond My Pay Grade!'
The director for "The Amazing Spider Man" Marc Webb is promoting the second installment and has signed on for the third which will be released in 2016. However, he has confirmed that it's only a trilogy as far as he's concerned.
Webb talked to The Daily Beast while he was at the SXSW Film Festival. He directly addressed the question on how long he will stay with the Spidey franchise:
"I'd like to be involved as a consultant, and I've already talked to these guys about it, but in terms of directing it, that will close out my tenure. I've had so much fun doing it, but after the third movie, it'll be the time to find something else."
There are already rumors building up about how Marvel would eventually agree to collaborate on a crossover. Is that a concept that he would like to eventually pursue?
"We're building out a more complicated Spider-Man universe with characters that people haven't seen in other Spider-Man movies-The Sinister Six, Venom, and more. We'd all love to overlap with other studios, but it's beyond my pay grade."
Marc Webb started out directing music videos before he helmed his first feature film, "500 Days Of Summer" starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Many music video directors are making it big as film directors, most recently, Spike Jonze of "Her." David Fincher of "Seven" and "The Social Network" is probably the benchmark.
Why do music video directors become successful with the transition to film? "You get so much practice and spend so much time on sets messing around. Also Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, great commercial music video directors who did Little Miss Sunshine. It's visual storytelling. If you can do a narrative in a music video, it naturally lends itself to a cinematic experience that people are after."
How did he make the transition from "500 Days of Summer" to "The Amazing Spider Man?" What was his vision on Peter Parker's character?
"I had met with the people at Sony and Matt Tolmach, who eventually became a producer on the movie, was a president at the studio. We talked about it in abstract terms. I wanted to dig in to his high school life, re-tell the origin story-which was controversial-but I wanted to rebuild the story from the ground-up. Because it was so close to the last one, I felt we needed to rebuild the story from the ground-up. To me, the nucleus of Peter Parker is him being left behind by his parents. That's the definitive moment in his life and everything emerges from that-even the spider bite."
Considering his background, Webb would like to specialize on character development. Of course, there will be action sequences and fight scenes, but it is always a priority that the characters are consistent.
By the time the 4th movie rolls out, it is possible that the Sinister Six and Venom have already assembled. Thus, the movie will be more of an action flick rather than a character-driven film.
Marc Webb believes that when that time comes, his mission with Peter Parker has already been accomplished.