Last week, Entertainment Weekly unveiled some exclusive photos from Marc Webb’s ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ in their Comic-Con preview issue. Not only did Spider-Man and Electro grace the cover of the magazine, but there were also a ton of new photos inside featuring Max Dillon, Gwen Stacy, Peter Parker, and Aleksei Sytsevich. Now, the publication’s website is offering up a more in depth look at the web-slinger’s new suit that will be unveiled in the sequel.
First revealed about four months ago in a teaser video on Marc Webb’s Twitter account, when we finally saw the new threads in all it’s glory. It showed that this time around the costumers were going for a more classic, comic book style for the suit. According to producer Avi Arad, the changes were made to please the fans that were unsatisfied by how far the suit in the first movie strayed from the source material.
EW spoke with Webb, producer Matt Tolmach, and costume designer Deborah Lynn Scott to discuss a few of the main changes to Peter Parker’s new outfit for his wall-crawling heroic alter ego:
(1) “We’ve got the best eyes of any suit,” says Webb. “Really big, very warm white eyes.” Unlike the eyes in the last suit, which were smaller and yellow, these eyes are as large as possible given the size of Andrew Garfield head. “They’re very expressive in their own way,” Scott says.
(2) Sharp-eyed viewers of the 2012 film noticed that Spider-Man didn’t wear a belt. “It’s there in the source material, so this one does,” Scott says. Why exactly does Spidey need a belt? “I don’t know,” says Scott. “He just always has. There are rules to comic-book characters.”
(3) Traditionally, the Spidey suit has a web-like graphic on the chest. This time, costumers took “an extremely mathematical and precise” approach, says Scott, plotting out the design on a computer in 3-D form. The little red-brick pattern is intended as an homage to the Tobey Maguire-era suit.
(4) When redesigning the apparatus that Spidey uses to shoot webbing, there were practical questions to consider. “We wanted ours to have an MP3 player in it,” says Scott. “You’ll see early on in the film that he can turn music on that he’s listening to inside the costume through his web shooter.”
(5) One of the biggest challenges was determining the precise shades of red and blue for Spider-Man’s suit. Scott chose shades that are much darker than the last suit, she says, with richer tones.
Since the first look at the suit and the numerous looks from set photos until this point, I think that longtime Spider-fans are generally happy with this new suit. Personally, I feel as if they got it spot on with the eyes, belt, logo, and colors. But the one thing that stands out to me is the mp3 player in the web shooters. What’s the purpose of that? That’s such an odd detail to include in their second version of the uniform. Maybe they’ll even let us know what’s on Pete’s playlist while they’re at it. Or maybe this new invention is actually the next big thing from Apple and it’s launching with the release of the movie. Everyone will be lining up for an iWeb for sure.
Mp3 player aside, what do you think of the new suit in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’? Do you like it better than the one he wore in the first movie? Share your thoughts about it in the comment section.
‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Chris Cooper, Paul Giamatti, Colm Feore, and Sally Field is set to hit theaters in 3D on May 2, 2014.
