Thanks to an unprecedented deal between Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures, Spider-Man is finally a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We first met him in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ where he was wonderfully played by Tom Holland. He’ll continue to take up the mantle of the web-slinger in the upcoming ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ (and potentially again in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ and beyond). And judging by the various social media posts featuring the young actor from set, he’s having the time of his life playing such an iconic character. But how did the last actor to don the mask and web-shooters feel when his turn was up and it was time for someone else to be the wall-crawler on the big screen?
In the latest installment of Variety’s ‘Actors on Actors’ interview, Andrew Garfield and Amy Adams spoke to each other about their stints as cinematic adaptations of legendary comic book characters. While the current Lois Lane asked the former Peter Parker to look back on his experience as Spidey, Garfield mentioned how heartbroken he was to learn that his go as one of his favorite superheroes wasn’t entirely what he signed up for:
“I was still young enough to struggle with the value system, I suppose, of corporate America really, it’s a corporate enterprise mostly. Story and character were not actually top of the priority list. I found that really, really tricky. I signed up to serve the story, and to serve this incredible character that I’ve been dressing as since I was three, and then it gets compromised and it breaks your heart. I got heartbroken a little bit to a certain degree.”
Unfortunately, Garfield’s experience is fairly common. It’s called the movie business for a reason and sometimes the people handling the business aren’t always concerned with telling the best story possible. There are definitely stories out there about movies being made to simply retain the film rights to certain characters. And while the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ series may not have started that way, it does sound like that it didn’t get the treatment that it deserved. Luckily, that no longer seems to be the case and the actor is “really excited to just be a fan again as opposed to bearing the weight of it”.
How did you think Andrew Garfield did overall in the two ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ films? What do you think about his recollection of playing Spider-Man? Are you surprised by the degree to which the character had to be compromised? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Despite being a “professional writer”, Ben likes run-on sentences far too much. For more of his attempts at being funny and the occasional insightful thought, follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
