The brand new trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man debuted online today at Apple. (You can check it out below.) We were fortunate, however, to see the new trailer in 3D last night, after which director Marc Webb chatted with the invited press about his upcoming 3D reboot.

Why the Spider-Man Reboot Will Be Amazing


Webb told us he and his team drew from Mark Bagley's Ultimate Spider-Man for the physical identity of Spidey, but went with the classic Amazing Spider-Man for Gwen Stacy. The villainous Lizard proved the greatest challenge, especially from a technical standpoint. The Lizard will be brought to cinematic life via a combination of actor Rhys Ifans' performance, a body double in a performance-capture suit for some of the one-on-one fight scenes, as well as CG-animation.

"In the comics, there are different incarnations of the Lizard. There's the one with the snout, but I was more interested in finding something that could relate to human emotion. I wanted to Rhys's performance in that creature," explained Webb. "Getting the eye ticks and looks, creating this armature that can actually speak and lips that make sounds -- it's a very detailed and tedious process. So I really wanted him to have emotion. I wanted him to have a face and feeling, and that's how I chose to do that. Then there's the physical component. I wanted to make him very powerful, I wanted to make him stronger than Spider-Man. That was really important."

But the grueling and demanding technical aspects of making the film aren't the reason why Webb wanted to do the movie or what keeps him going through the long hours of exacting work. For him, it's still really a story about a boy dealing with relationships and a mystery surrounding the loss of his parents.

"I was always a Spider-Man fan, but I was a bigger Peter Parker fan. But when you see the movie, I don't think anybody will be worried about the emotional part of it," said Webb. "There's an incredibly innocent and tender quality to Peter Parker. He's not a billionaire, he doesn't have money. He has trouble with the people that raised him, and he has trouble with talking to girls -- that intense relatability, which is all through the movie."

"The interpersonal relationships that Peter Parker has are so simple and so domestic that it's a very fun dichotomy to play that big, massive spectacle alongside those very small movies. In a very real way, there's a small, intimate little indie movie at the heart of Spider-Man, and that was my access point," Webb continued. "In the trailer, you want that spectacle, you want that energy, because I think there's an expectation surrounding that. But as we get closer to release, I think there are materials that will come up to help show and demonstrate some of the more intimate parts of Spider-Man. That, to me, is where the heart is."

Even Spidey's much-loved sense of humor is grounded in that character-driven, more realistic approach to the material. Said Webb: "Everything in this movie, the first domino, is Peter Parker getting left behind by his parents, right? So I thought to myself, 'What does that do to somebody? How does that change your view of the world?' To me, that creates a level of distrust. It's a brutal thing to happen to you, and that is where he gets that outsider status. Then there's a sarcasm that comes from that, a quippy-ness. There are some parts that you may have seen where the attitude comes out. He has a chip on his shoulder. He's a little bit mean, he's a little snarky. ... The humor comes from a very human, real, emotional place. It's not just slapped on."

The previous trailer left some wondering why they'd want to see a movie that seemed to retell the same story they'd already seen in Sam Raimi's first Spidey film. "We've seen the origen of Spider-Man, maybe we haven't seen the origen of Peter Parker. There are certain iconic elements of Spider-Man that I felt we were obligated to honor. But there are some exploratory phases. Again, I'm trying to build something that sets a different tone and a different attitude and do things in a little bit more of a practical way, especially at the beginning of the movie."


The emphasis that this is Peter's origen story rather than Spidey explains the focus on the mystery behind Peter's parents. "The first domino in the story is the parents. He goes out looking for his father, and he finds himself. That's my tagline," said Webb. The filmmakers may be putting their own spin on Spidey lore, but that doesn't mean radical changes are to be expected. Take, for example, Peter's relationship with Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field).

"Uncle Ben's death is -- well, you'll have to see the movie -- but there are a few elements that Marvel is very protective of and that I think are very important to the Spider-Man origen story," said Webb. "Uncle Ben's death transforming him and having an impact on him in certain ways is an incredibly important part of the mythology, and I would never subvert that. That's all I'll say about that. But I'm very protective of that."

"We all love Aunt May, but I wanted to create a tension between May and Peter because, again, what's the reality of this situation?," he said. "I wanted to explore what would happen if you were someone who was in charge of taking care of a kid who's had a lot of tragedy in his life. He goes out late at night and he comes back -- he's f***** up -- you'd be concerned! He's got bruises on his face. What happens in that moment? And that can create some tension. But you want there to be love there, and that's what someone like Sally Field gives you."

Webb added, "Ben and May are sort of street wise, blue-collar people, but they're not scientists. And Peter has this incredible scientific ability, which creates a little bit of a gap between him and Ben and May. I thought that was a really interesting thing to explore. What Marvel was able to do was to sort of embody this blue-collar guy, and there was some fissure, some break between the two of them that was developing. Even though there was a great love for him, he knew he wasn't his father. He knew he wasn't Richard Parker. And that crack, that missing piece that Peter had was something to start off with."

The Amazing Spider-Man opens July 3.


Jim Vejvoda is the Executive Editor in charge of IGN Movies. Follow him on Twitter at @StaxIGN or on IGN.

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