Why Andrew Garfield Will Be One Of The Best Loved Stars For A Long Time

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33 Responses to “Why Andrew Garfield Will Be One Of The Best Loved Stars For A Long Time”

1. Don R. Lewis says:

   July 23, 2011 at 11:59 am

   That was pretty neat! I had to force the cynic in my head to take a seat and let me watch. Between that intro and drunk ass Rhys Ifans getting arrested at the tail of the panel, looks like Spidey wins the comic-con buzz award.
2. storymark says:

   July 23, 2011 at 3:18 pm

   That is pretty damned cool. Liking Garfield a lot.
3. Mike says:

   July 23, 2011 at 3:35 pm

   Reading McWeeny’s account of the panel, I’m feeling a lot better about this movie than I did after the trailer.
4. eugenen says:

   July 23, 2011 at 4:53 pm

   Saved his life? What’s that about?
5. Anghus says:

   July 23, 2011 at 8:36 pm

   The spiderman panel has been the talk of the con.

   Most of it has not been positive. Who knows how the final product will turn out, but if anyone leads you to believe that the buzz coming out of comic con for amazing spiderman is super positive… Theyre being very generous.

   Garfield got all the goodwill here. People are still suspect. There was no home run.

   What we do know now after the panel is that this movie might as well been called Ultimate Spiderman as much if the story is straight out of Bendis’ run.

   And Henry Cavills “no comment” on Superman during The Immortals panel was so interesting and wonderfully awkward. Especially now that the rumors are circulating that the studio is having doubts about Snyder.

   Great convention.
6. Martin S says:

   July 23, 2011 at 9:29 pm

   Exactly, Anghus. A lot of the concerns I had from the trailer have played out from that panel. They’re going to Star Wars Parker’s dad into the “mythology” via Oscorp, because they really have no ground to cover in an origin. I see the arc put in place, but this is the same thinking that forced Incredible Hulk into existence when no one was asking for it.

   IMO – Bendis. Ughhh. Between him, Morrison and Millar, no one should be surprised the industry is in its death-throes when it should be attracting their largest numbers since Batman ’89.
7. SamLowry says:

   July 23, 2011 at 10:12 pm

   Oh my, Supes is up in the air? He can’t stay there for long, because won’t Warner lose their rights if they can’t kick out a new film toute suite?
8. chris says:

   July 23, 2011 at 10:48 pm

   How about re-releasing “Red Riding,” instead? Soooo much better than “Boy A.”
9. Anghus says:

   July 23, 2011 at 11:19 pm

   I dont know if Supes is up in the air but a lot of people are inferring that the production is “troubled”.
10. hoopersx says:

    July 24, 2011 at 1:05 am

    MOVIESTAR! Staged or not, that kid gets it. Wasn’t really looking forward to EMO Spidey. Now I am. Andrew Garfield is AWESOME.
11. Don R. Lewis says:

    July 24, 2011 at 9:41 am

    Anghus-
    I like how you and all the bloggeratti think you have some inside scoop after attending Junket-a-con. Like the higher ups would ever let anything slip to you guys. “Oooohhh…Henry Cavill said ‘no comment.” Hmmm….interesting.” You see what they want you to see. You guys know nothing more than any of the fanboys who waited in line for 3 days.

    No one saw anything new from the Spidey movie yet, there’s negative buzz about it? This is the kind of guess work and taste making that drives me crazy about geek culture. It’s all catty, gossipy, speculation based nonsense guided by who’s giving who access to information. Those who have withheld info or not given so-and-so a party pass get scrutinized more tightly.

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to watch. Much like the baseball trade deadline. Ultimately, we can all have fun guessing at what might happen. But the ego involved with comic-con bloggers who act like they have a direct studio line is L-O-L funny.
12. David Poland says:

    July 24, 2011 at 10:38 am

    Sam Lowry… that’s how we got Superman Returns. McG was building sets when things went south in a hurry.

    I have no inside info on the status of the project, but as I said from the start, if you are hiring Zack Snyder and don’t want him to DO Zack Snyder, why hire him. And as his vision has been roundly rejected as a 4-quadrant style, why would you let him do Superman in his style? WB will not be thrilled to get Thor/Cap America numbers for Superman… though they would probably be okay with a slight improvement on Thor’s international number.
13. Martin S says:

    July 24, 2011 at 11:19 am

    I was trying to follow-up with Anghus’ comment, and it all comes down to speculation over Goyer moving on to Godzilla, Snyder’s 300 writer coming in a few weeks before shooting and the date locking into 2013…

    …and none of that actually spells bad news if people look at WB/DC en totale.

    The Dec 2012 date was a Variety lob based on WB losing half the Superman rights in 2013 to the Siegel estate. It’s also why the script has had some major revisions that either have excluded or included Superman staples and also a major catalyst in the DC relaunch. But about a month ago, WB won a court order for some manifesto the Siegel lawyer did not want to hand over. Apparently, WB felt it was the smoking gun to show that this cat was going to retain control of the Siegel’s half. I don’t know the legal ramifications, but when you look at the changes that have followed since, especially moving the film date, I have to conclude WB feels pretty strong about retaining ownership and keeping profit-sharing to a minimum.

    So, IMO, Robinov and Tull decided to pump up the action quota in Man Of Steel and move it into the summer. Goyer goes to Godzilla because that’s floundering and Snyder’s guy is brought in to re-write the third. The extra six months now gives more greenscreen and post time.
14. Mr. F. says:

    July 24, 2011 at 8:17 pm

    “No one saw anything new from the Spidey movie yet, there’s negative buzz about it?”

    According to AICN… they showed *8 minutes* of footage. Including the CG bad guy… which was what underwhelmed, supposedly.
15. anghus says:

    July 25, 2011 at 7:42 am

    Don, i get what you’re saying, but my perspective isn’t just coming from random observations from a con attendee. And id like to politely tell you to ‘fuck off’ for calling me fanboy.

    I would never, ever, utter an opinion about a potential troubled production based solely on something i witnessed at a panel.

    Yes, you’re absolutely right that so much of this is just armchair prognostication. And no, i don’t have a pipeline to the studio. However, i do know enough people that report on the industry as well as people who work for studios who had no problem sharing what they heard about what seemed like a troubled production on one superhero film and the phrases like “amateur hour” being used about Amazing Spiderman footage.

    The Spiderman panel showed new scenes and footage. The vast majority of people i talked to at the panel weren’t thrilled, but still said they were looking forward to seeing the finished film. All i’m grading is the panel which didn’t do a lot to generate an overwhelming sense of “i have to see this”.

    the best comment i heard that summed up the Spiderman panel was “Even without a panel, people were still talking most about The Avengers”. And it was true. There really were a lot of people talking about the 90 second post credit Avengers clip.
16. SamLowry says:

    July 25, 2011 at 9:02 am

    I’ll be so glad when the summer of ’12 is over and Marvel has to move on.
17. anghus says:

    July 25, 2011 at 10:09 am

    Sam, I agree. It feels like ever since the post credits iron man sequence weve been on a five year tease. The Avengers is their money shot.

    Im not sure what they have planned for the morning after other than Iron Man 3
18. JS Partisan says:

    July 25, 2011 at 10:29 am

    They have Thor 2, Cap 2, and a bunch of other properties they have talked about recently. They will also probably have the Avengers 2, so there you go.

    Now with the ASM, the trailer played a lot better to me in 3D. It went from Pirates 4 bad to not that bad at all. Nevertheless, Sony needs to sell this movie to women. If they get women in the door then they are all good in the hood.
19. hcat says:

    July 25, 2011 at 10:35 am

    Don’t they plan on having the cycle all over again? Another Cap movie set in modern times, a Hawkeye/Black Widow solo film, see if they can finally get a decent Hulk movie made (sort of weird how they hired perhaps the most laid back actor of this generation to be the ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me When I’m Angry’ guy). Disney is just begginning with these, and when Downey doesn’t want to come back for Avengers:Generic Subtitle instead of Numeral, Cheadle will just take the reigns. Based on the law of Franchises, sequels and spin-offs will continue until there is not another dollar to be wrung from the material, this could take another decade.
20. Mike says:

    July 25, 2011 at 10:52 am

    And then they’ll reboot it all, only darker and grittier.
21. hcat says:

    July 25, 2011 at 11:05 am

    Nah, now that Marvel is held by Disney, they will never go dark and gritty. When the appeal starts running out with the general audience they are going to nueter it as much as possible and pitch it directly to the pre-teens only.
22. SamLowry says:

    July 25, 2011 at 12:00 pm

    I strongly suspect that when Downey leaves they’ll just replace him with another white guy. I don’t think audiences will accept Rhodey as the new Iron Man.

    There’s no story behind him, no swagger, no fun. And if “Steel” was any indication….
23. JS Partisan says:

    July 25, 2011 at 1:45 pm

    Hcat, they will not neuter it because pre-teens aren’t dumb assholes. Kids are smarter today than most people give them credit for, and having a movie like TDK or possible TDK-R right there to juxtapose it for the next ten years, almost guarantees that these movies never lose their balls.

    There are also a lot more interesting Marvel stories to be told and once you get the Avengers to work… god willing… you can make even bigger and more out there stories. Stories that feature Thanos are not that far away and you can’t neuter that ‘NOS!

    Sam, seriously, they built the Enterprise in Iowa, and RDJ will cease be Tony eventually but Rhodey needs an elevated status before taking over. If he shows up in the Avengers then that will help. If not, well, there is another Iron Man movie coming. They can fix him there.

    Nevertheless, the cycle will continue, but we will get more characters, and more characters just make things in the big universe movies all that more interesting. Seriously, how they make that Avengers movie without Hank and Janet is a mystery to me but Moira Hill being in it… TREMENDOUS.

    Oh yeah Hcat, Hawkeye and Mockingbird. Bobbi needs to be in these movies damn it!
24. hcat says:

    July 25, 2011 at 2:18 pm

    Don’t mean they will nueter them immediately, and I hesitate to say this to you, but someday Superheros will go the way of the western or the spy thriller or Silver buddy action movie. We will get one every two years or so but they will not litter the landscape like they do now. It will not happen immediately, this has years to go still. But when they do Disney will not just shrug their shoulders and let their investment fester, and instead of catering to the current crop of comic readers (whose average age is now what 43? and will then be mid fifties). Disney will push toward an ever younger set of eyeballs.
25. Martin S says:

    July 25, 2011 at 4:01 pm

    Disney will be lucky to get to a third Avengers film, let alone a third Thor or Cap. Cost escalation will make it nearly impracticable.

    We got this nugget from Quesada that Blade and Punisher are back in-house, but are going nowhere anytime soon.

    Now if you’re honest and think about it, (i.e not Jason), consider how big of an admittance that really is.

    Blade put Marvel films on the map. X-Men and Spidey do not happen if DeLuca didn’t push Blade into existence. Blade showed that Marvel properties had translatable value and set everything in motion. Most people are unaware of this because in hindsight it’s hard to believe Spidey or X-Men weren’t going to be made. But Blade franchise was what Iron Man is now, the straw that stirred the drink, and it’s been indefinitely shelved.

    As for The Punisher, he’s easily the real breakout character of the past few decades and was the key to Lionsgate big, big deal with Marvel. Its success was supposed to roll out a dozen other titles by now, like Ray Park as Iron Fist. None of this happened and this property is played out.

    Only so many bullets to fire.
26. hcat says:

    July 25, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Blade might have been first out of the gate but X-Men, Spidey, and Hulk had all been in development well before then. And while $70 million might have been a decent haul for New Line, none of those other properties were greenlit with that result in mind.

    With both of those requireing an R-rating, its not suprising that Marvel is going to continue to concentrate on their four-quandrant tentpole properties.
27. JS Partisan says:

    July 25, 2011 at 7:46 pm

    Hcat, they may go the way of the dodo, it could happen, but those stories still draw people. Not as much as they once did, but when they go digital, that could be a gamechanger for the comic book industry. Whateverthecase, this is years off, and when have kids ever stopped wanting to be superheroes or not wanted those stories told well?

    Martin, you haven’t earned the right to use my first name so stop fucking using it. You also have to realize that COST ESCALATION is what Lucas is working on and once he figures it out. The COST will be a lot more reasonable and we all know that’s the future for all of these big tent pole films let alone comic book films.
28. SamLowry says:

    July 25, 2011 at 8:37 pm

    Rhodey will not be taking over unless Will Smith takes over the role. Remember, it’s all about international sales these days, and how many other black actors do international audiences accept?

    And, yeah, the Enterprise was built in Iowa just like the Sandman killed Uncle Ben. Yep yep.
29. Martin S says:

    July 25, 2011 at 9:13 pm

    IO – I could have been talking about Jason Bateman. or Jason Patric.

    Lucas is working on talent contracts? huh.

    ohhh…you mean special effects. Yeah, that’s not where costs will run rampant with Avengers since they’re already starting off tits-deep in effects. Like RDJ before IM2, Maguire before Spidey 2, Half the cast before X2, if Avengers explodes, everyone will want a renegotiation. Hemsworth is lining up enough big roles that by the time they come to him with Thor 2, it’s going to cost. Same with Evans. What do you think the Branagh or Favreau issues were partly about? Hell, Spidey 4 was about above-line costs spiraling out of control.

    Hcat – I know they were in development, but it was simply about acquisitions. No one was seriously plowing ahead with any Marvel property pre-1998. You can see that by the scripts in development before Blade, which were mostly spec junk, and after, when writers du jour were brought in to start clean.

    As for expectations, I spent a lot of time during this period advising people on Marvel stock since it was at junk status. Fox’s internals for X-Men were not high. So Blade numbers, opening to about a third of it’s budget and doubling it stateside, was the expectation. As for Spidey, the belief was 80′s, low 90′s until very close to release.
30. anghus says:

    July 25, 2011 at 9:31 pm

    i agree that the current model won’t work for sequels. If every Marvel movie clears about 400-450 million worldwide without even bringing P&A into the equation, you have to imagine that eventually the re-negotiations will eventually cause the cost to become too high.

    This is the problem that the comic book film is coming to terms with. Much like the CG animated films, there’s a threshold. You put out 5 or 6 a year and you soon realize how limited the number actually is.

    If every Marvel film can generate 450 million in revenue, then they have to find a way to keep that number as close to 125 million. And that just seems unrealistic given the current climate.
31. SamLowry says:

    July 25, 2011 at 10:33 pm

    Maybe JSP means the movies will eventually look like that Spider-Man series that ran on MTV or the Iron Man Armored Adventures that ran on Nicktoons–but a smidge better, or else people will think they’re being asked to cough up money for something they could watch at home for free.
32. hcat says:

    July 26, 2011 at 9:19 am

    Martin – one of the biggest regrets of my life was not buying Marvel stock in 98. I was working at Legg Mason and was amazed at how little it was worth (though living paycheck to paycheck at the time there was no way to get a nest egg). I kept mentioning it to the investment guys but all they would say is the only entertainment stock they were interested in was Disney Disney Disney.
33. Martin S says:

    July 26, 2011 at 8:51 pm

    hcat – you don’t have to tell me. In ’99, I had one guy on the line for a massive Marvel buy that would have put us at the table with Arad, Icahn and the rest. His partner killed it because he wouldn’t believe anyone was going to “really give a damn” about a Spider-Man movie.

    For years, I hated hearing the post-Spidey “wow, you were right” obligatory bullshit.