N E W S
Return to the Continuum home page

Clicking on images frequently provides larger ones.
Friday, January 5, 2001

SPIDER-MAN MOVIE NEWS CONFERENCE


GIVE'EM A CLICK

By Rob Allstetter/The Comics Continuum

CULVER CITY, Calif. - Will Spider-Man have his organic web-shooters? Will Mary Jane have red hair? How did Tobey Maguire get into shape to play the web-slinger?

Those were some of the questions asked Thursday morning at a news conference leading into the start of the production of the Spider-Man movie on Monday. A throng of more than 500 international print, Internet and television journalists gathered in Stage 17 on the Sony lot to ask questions of director Sam Raimi, executive producer Avi Arad, producers Laura Ziskin and Ian Bryce, special effects supervisor John Dykstra and stars Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Willem Dafoe (Norman Osborn/Green Goblin), Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane) and James Franco (Harry).

They sat inside a wrestling ring set in front of the official Spider-Man logo and fielded questions for nearly an hour. Afterward, journalists got to go one-on-one with them in front of a massive exterior set next door in Stage 27.

Today, The Continuum presents a transcript from the news conference, with more individual comments from other interviews to come. Also look for more news about the first official photo of Spider-Man in his costume very soon.

Here's the transcript, starting with an introduction of the set:

Sam Raimi: I'm Sam Raimi, the director of Spider-Man. Thank you for coming to today's press conference. This set that we're on right now is supposed to be a New York rental hall where a professional wrestling group, kind of in the lower rungs of professional wrestling, has set up for a few nights stand. And here they hold pretty much a strong man competition.

And Tobey Maguire playing the role of Peter Parker, newly vested in his spider powers, comes here in an outfit that he devises since these wrestlers are quite colorful characters. He comes here to use his powers to win some money. Because in the first act, he's quite an irresponsible fellow and he hasn't quite realized are a great gift to be used for the betterment of all.

So this is a scene where he'll be squaring off with Randy Savage, the great, ferocious professional wrestler, and I won't tell you who wins the fight.

Question: For Sam Raimi, are the organic web-shooters still in the movie and what are your thoughts about that?

Sam Raimi: I've familiar with the debate. I haven't followed every bit of it, but I've been informed as to what's going on.

I know that in the Spider-Man comic books, they've clarified that issue. Spider-Man is vested with these powers, and he builds web-shooters and he develops a web fluid and he puts it in his web-shooters and that's how he spins his web.

But what we're trying to do in this Spider-Man picture is not just stick to the letter of the comic book. We're trying to capture the spirit. We've always seen the great strength of Spider-Man is that he's a real person, he's one of us. He's a kid from Brooklyn who doesn't have a lot of money. He doesn't get the girl. He's got acne. He's a fairly average-looking kid (a look from Toby Maguire and laughs from crowd). Or slightly better than average.

He's one of us, unlike Superman from the planet Krypton or other fantastic heroes. He's really a kid we identify with. And this kid is vested with these powers, or perhaps cursed with these powers. But the important thing is, he's one of us.

In the comic book, he is a genius. And we're going to keep that. He's a very smart kid. But when he can develop a material that even the 3M Corporation can't seem to develop, its starts to distance him from a real human being. It distances from the average kid in high school.

GIVE'EM A CLICK

So we felt the best thing to do was, since he's bitten by this spider and takes on the powers of a spider -- crawling walls, the ability to leap like some leaping spiders have, the great, proportionate strength of a spider developed into his size - we felt it was a logic progression to let him spin his own webs. And in that way keep him a complete human being that we can identify with and be consistent that once he's bitten by the spider, he takes on all the powers. Why just take on four of the five? Why not take on all five?

In addition, it's another of the devices to create alienation. Because Peter Parker has always been an outcast and Spider-Man a misunderstood hero. And I think that's a lot of the appeal of Spider-Man is that teenage kids understand, 'I'm misunderstood, just like Spider-Man.' So, being an outcast is a great thing. To have yourself change in one more way physically to distance you from your friends and peers, is another device by which we can have Peter Parker be an outcast.

So I think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. I think the greatest part about Peter is that he's a human being and he's faced with the problems of these powers. I never saw his ability to make a web as a great problem for him. I saw it as something that distances him from us.

So I think, getting back to the thesis statement, it that it's a great choice and it was inspired by James Cameron's treatment. I think it's a great choice to help alienate him, to make him feel cut off and embrace the spirit of who Spider-Man is, a misunderstood hero, who's an outcast, who's cursed with these powers.

Question: To Tobey Maguire, what did you have to go through to get in shape? What do you foresee in the role of Spider-Man?

Tobey Maguire: I'm very excited, for one. I've done all kinds of training for flexibility and for acrobatic grace and also just to do push-ups. I enjoy it thoroughly. I'm excited. I'm a little nervous, getting that pre-movie jitters. It's been a long time in coming. I think I was cast in July, and the anticipation of the first day of work, which is now Monday, is all on me now. But I'm excited and I can't wait to get in the middle of it.

As far as people's expectations, I'm not too concerned. I put all that responsibility onto Sam. I just show up and do my job.

Question: To Tobey Maguire, have you had to do aerial wire training?

Tobey Magiure: I've been doing a little bit of that stuff, too.

Question: To Kirsten Dunst, can you explain your character and how you identify with it personally? And the same question to Tobey.

Kirsten Dunst: I play Mary Jane Watson. And the way the script and the comic books, she's had a very rough childhood and she's always had to put up many masks. Part of this story and me in the movie is a lot of growth. So, since she comes from a hard childhood - her father has always put her down, her mother is a very weak character and her father is an alcoholic - she's gone though stuff that I haven't experienced. My mom has always been very supportive.

But everyone can identify with feeling weird in school. Especially with the job I do, I always felt a little weird in high school because I was different in a way. So I'll be able to relate as much as I can. I always try to connect emotionally to my characters.

Tobey Maguire: I can relate very much to Peter Parker. I think I can especially relate to Spider-Man, that side of my character, because I feel like a super-hero in general in my life. (laughs).

No, I think he's a great character and one of the big themes is, "With great power, comes great responsibility." I think there's great power in just being alive and being a human being. And I think, within that, there's great responsibility. Everyday that I wake up, I have a responsibility to myself and to others to live an esteemable life and to be an example for people around me.

Peter also goes through a lot of common struggles, that I think that most people can relate to.

Question: For John Dykstra and Sam Raimi, Superman made you believe a man could fly. What is the burden of belief in this film? And what will Ted (Raimi) be doing in this picture?

Sam Raimi: Ted will be taking a small part in the picture. That's my brother. My mother's making me put him in the picture.

They did a great job, Richard Donner with Superman. I love that picture. It was really emotional and uplifting and bright and wonderful. And you did believe a man who could fly in that film. They were successful with the effects.

We're faced with a great challenge making Spider-Man believable. The kids really want to soar with Spider-Man, 60 stories up, they want to dance with him in these aerial acrobatics that he performs. Those illusions are going to be accomplished a lot of different way. I don't want to reveal it too much because I don't want to spoil it for the kids and have them start picking apart the tricks. I want them to be swept up into the thing. But, suffice to say, Tobey will be performing a lot of the pieces himself, with backgrounds put in. And then John Dykstra will be helping him with some CGI and maybe I'll turn that over to John.

John Dykstra: One of the problems is that I'm always a helper, the bridesmaid syndrome. (laughs) With the technology that is available is, as we all know, enormous. I guess the challenge for the filmmaker is to use it in an effective fashion. And being part of a team such as this, I feel as though I can't go wrong. So we're going to enhance and help along the spirit and the soul of Spider-Man, where, if for physical reasons, we fall short. And I think it will be indistinguishable from reality.

Superman was a great job at the time, but I think the audience has become more sophisticated and much more adapted at determining what was real and what was illusion. And that's our challenge. And I believe that you will be challenged hard-pressed to tell the places where we've helped reality a little bit.

But we will press the limits. We're going to do things that haven't been done in a movie before. I'm just loathe to tell you because then you'll look for them.

GIVE'EM A CLICK

Question: What is your target audience?

Sam Raimi: The picture's gonna be rated PG-13. The movie is really being made for the whole family. Spider-Man is a comic book because in Stan Lee's original conception, he was a real human being. It really brought out the base of people who could appreciate comic books. I think it completely changed the demographic at that point. Because suddenly here was a real character with a love relationship - and sometimes two. He had family problems. It wasn't about being strong guy. He was a real human being. So I think we're trying to make the picture appeal to an intelligent audience, so that adults can really enjoy it, but at its heart, it will have a lot of fun and excitement and adventure that the kids will also enjoy.

Question: For Willem Dafoe, from Shadow of the Vampire to Spider-Man, what is your inspiration for characters like Green Goblin?

Willem Dafoe: First of all, I've done other films since Shadow of the Vampire. So I don't experience it as doing Shadow of the Vampire and then Spider-Man. They're very different.

I think of my role in this movie as Norman Osborn first and then the Green Goblin grows out of an aspect of Norman Osborn. And Norman Osborn is an interesting character because he's got a dark side and a light, positive side. He believes in science. He's interested developing the mental and physical capabilities of a human being through science. And there's a dark side and a light side - and the Green Goblin is a manifestation of that dark side. And it's interesting because ... before I even read the script, Sam talked me through the film. And I loved the way he talked about it in such incredible psychological terms. I always liked how he talked about the relationship with Norman and his son and Norman and Peter, in particular. It's very rich.

So that's one aspect. Then the other aspect that attracts me to it was the physicality of it. I come from the theater and I still work in the theater and sometime what I miss in film is a real, tangible, physical investment in things. And in this, I have lots of things to play with and I'm really looking forward to it.

Question: Is look in Spider-Man like in the first comics?

Sam Raimi: We have a great team of people responsible for the look of the picture. That's Jim Atchinson, who is designing our great wardrobe. Does both the Goblin's wardrobe, Spider-Man's, the entire cast's. Then there's Neil Spizak, who does the production design, who's also responsible for the look of the thing. And Don Burgess, our director of photography.

Together, they're really determining the look of the picture. But, specifically, in regards to the outfit, we've decided to get back to the classical look of the red and blue Spider-Man, but Jim has decided to update, just to bring it to the year of 2002, when the picture opens.

It adds some dimensionality to it. To take a slightly more subtle approach to the color of the outfit. To increase the flexibility. What we were really after is to give Tobey an outfit where he could display maximum flexibility, his physical prowess. He's really been working out for this thing. I think that's what the audience loves about Spider-Man, not the Schwarzenegger look, but rather the fact that he's this graceful dancer.

So a lot of Jim's work was in making him look like the classic Spider-Man, updated but still making it functional for a dancer to perform in.

Question: Movie's budget? Does Spider-Man have the power to keep production going if there's an actors strike?

Ian Bryce: The budget is the great unanswerable question, unfortunately. As with all prestigious, high-profile pictures as this one that involve a lot of high, A-level talent and great technology, the pictures do tend to cost more. And the more expensive they get, the more classified they get. So all I can is that the cost of the picture is classified.

Laura Ziskin: We will be finished before any impending strike. The picture will be finished.

Question: Can someone speak of the history of the project?

Avi Arad: OK, I'll take this one. I'm the Marvel part. For me, it's a very big party today. We've been waiting for this for a long time. There is kind of a bloody history here. There was bankruptcy in the past, there were some lawsuits and finally we got the movie to the place where it should have been in the first place. It took a long time, Marvel went into bankruptcy, MGM, Carolco. It's a long, sad legal news.

The good news are it's all clean, all the rights are here. It's in the right place. It's in the right hands. Sam was an obvious choice because what we are looking for in our universe and in our pictures is the passion. People have to come in feeling this is something they always wanted to do. And Sam can tell you about his pajamas and the wall behind his bed. (laughs) He still climbs the walls every so often. And everybody in this movie is in it for the passion and for being part of history of the greatest character ever been conceived.

Question: There have been a lot of super-hero films. Did you look at various super-hero movies?

Sam Raimi: That was my plan. I thought early to myself in pre-production, "I'm going to watch every super-hero picture ever made' and try to understand why they work and why they don't work. But suddenly I was overwhelmed with this outrageously gigantic job of making Spider-Man in pre-production with all its departments and responsibilities. As far as I got, was the first half of Superman 1. I never got the time to see the rest. I saw X-Men then.

So I can't say that it's based on those pictures or that I had time to learn from them. I remember how much I loved the first half of Superman 1. (laughs) And X-Men was a blast. How about you fellas?

Tobey Maguire: It's not really a concern of mine at all. I'm just doing this movie.

Willem Dafoe: It didn't occur to me to look at other films dealing with super-heroes. I've got my hands full.

Question: For Tobey Maguire, how much more comfortable will you be when you put those tights on now as opposed to when you signed on to do this movie? Any food you had to give up?

Tobey Maguire: Well, I did a screen test and I had to wear some kind of tights for the screen test, which was before all my working out. And I felt OK in them then. And this is five months later. I don't know; it's fine. I never thought that I would be wearing a skintight soon day in and day out for such a long period of time, but that's what's exciting about life. There's something different around every turn.

I like structure and discipline, so I've enjoyed the workouts and eating a certain way. And a lot of what I eat, too, is too keep my energy up. I had to eat more food, which was surprising to me. It is specific to what I eat, which is pretty scientific and boring, but I like it.

Question: Can you discuss Stan Lee's involvement? Is Mary Jane going to be a red head?

Avi Arad: Stan will be in the movie. We have a long-standing tradition that in our pictures we have Stan do a walk-on. For posterity and obviously to show all the respect for the man who created that. Stan is not involved in making pictures. He's involved in other endeavors and writing, and this is a big tribute to him.

Kirsten Dunst: I'm going to be a redhead, don't worry. I wouldn't want to upset any Spider-Man fans.

Question: For Kirsten Dunst, will Mary Jane say, "Face it Tiger, you just hit jackpot?"

Kirsten Dunst: (After some discussion) Well, I guess it's in there now. (laughs). No, that's not the first line I ever say to him. But I have a "Tiger" in there, so...

Question: Is this going to be stylistically like Darkman?

Sam Raimi: It's going to have its own style. I guess, because guys and girls who read Spider-Man comic books are so into the outrageous movement that Spider-Man generates as he swings through these tremendous arcs, at 90 miles per hour, through the city of New York.

It demands a much more visceral camera style than we presented with Darkman. That was a more set type of fellow and it didn't demand the same amount of exciting movement that Spider-Man demands. So I think it's going to be a lot more interesting in its camera movement and a lot more visceral in its feeling, but not so much that the audience says, "Oh, that's a cool shot." I don't want to pull them out of the movie. I want these great actors that I've got here to pull the audience in the film. I'm going to try to make it exciting without making myself known.

Question: For Sam Raimi, you've established these great visual styles and in these last three films, you've concentrated on dramatic, performance-oriented stories. What have you learned over the last three films and what will you bring from that to Spider-Man?

Sam Raimi: Thank you for the kinds. I'm learning that I don't know anything about actors and don't want to know. (laughs). I'm joking, of course. Every picture that I make, I learn a lot from the actors. I think I got into motion pictures because I liked what cameras were and how they captured reality and how they replayed it. And then the fact that you could shuffle that reality in editing was outrageous to me. That's why I got into it: to study what were the effects of camera movement, lighting and sounds.

Those horror movies that I made when I started - they were called Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and there were others - they were about the exploration about what film was. And presenting the world of the supernatural was a great medium for that because you had to present something that doesn't exist in our world. It really was a great grounds for experimentation.

But at some point in my life, I thought, "I should start making the types of pictures I would like to see." Because the films that I saw were not horror films, and yet I was making horror films. I thought, "Well this is dishonest in some way." I don't go to see horror movies.

So I started to look for better material and that attracted a finer-caliber actor. And I learned, and am still learning, how to work with actors and what they bring to a film. The more I learn, the more astonished at the wonders that they create. And that it's all really about them. And everything else is just a device. And that really, great stories are about human beings and their interaction and things that we understand.

There's nothing wrong about a great visual. I love it. In fact, this picture is a great chance to combine both. It's a great chance to make it visually interesting and exciting and still work with a great caliber of actor and a really fine script with a great character. It's really a film director's dream to make a picture like Spider-Man.

Question: For James Franco, can you tell us something about your character in this? Is it nerve-wracking to be in such a big movie?

James Franco: I play Harry Osborn, son of Norman Osborn. And I guess what we're developing in this film is the dynamic that I'm searching for love from him that he will not give and I can't satisfy his demands. I think it's very pertinent to this day and age where there are so many problems between parents and children. I think it's told in our film. All our parents in this film are either absent or abusive.

I'm very happy to do it. And I'm very excited to be on a picture of this caliber, working with very talented people. So it's a great honor.

GIVE'EM A CLICK

Question: For James Franco, your profile is about to increase greatly with this and James Dean. What's that like?

James Franco: I don't know. I haven't had much experience with it yet. It hasn't hit me and I don't know if it will. I enjoy the work, and it's not really about any notoriety. It just fulfills something within me, so and I just hope to continue on this path. So far, I've been able to work with wonderful people, and it's been more than I've expected.

Question: For Sam Raimi, how ready is the script? We've heard a lot about rewrites?

Sam Raimi: The script is not in trouble. It's one of the best scripts I've had the opportunity to work on, actually. And it, like many pictures in Hollywood, has had a lot of writers. And I say that because, well, because it's true.

Spider-Man has a long history of many writers. Although it was created by Stan Lee and he steered that ship for many years, different writers would come aboard, sometimes on a monthly basis and write the different episodes. Spider-Man is really gone beyond one person's creation - Stan Lee's - and its really owned by the world now, it's such a powerful character. And it means so much to everyone. They've taken a great ownership over it, everybody personally.

It's OK to me that a number of writers have worked on it. I think it's fitting to this particular project, seeing as how it's had different writers for 30 years.

It's started with the James Cameron treatment, which was kind of a script kind of a treatment. It was a fine piece of work. Then David Koepp came aboard and did the lion's share of the work, turning it into a screenplay, working on it for many years. That's basically what we're working with, although Scott Rosenberg did some work for us, he helped us, and so did Alvin Sargent.

Everybody's contributed a great deal; I'd say David Koepp is really the main writer. As far as I'm concerned, nobody's really off the picture. We need all their talents. It's not unlikely that I'll be calling any of those writers again if I have a problem scene or some advice about some particular bit of business that I need help with.

Question: With movies like The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where everyone's doing this great Kung Fu, will Spider-Man be doing a kung fu? What's the fighting style?

Tobey Maguire: I don't think Spider-Man is a martial artist. He's got his own style of fighting. First of all, he's so strong that if he hit regular people like that, he could seriously injure them and he's too responsible of a man to do such a thing.

I personally can do any style of fighting that they ask. (laughs) And I did a demonstration for Sam begging him to please let me show off my skills. But, no, we got to stick to the comic book. (laughs).

Question: How much did everyone know about the characters and did they do any reading of the comics?

Sam Raimi: I'll jump in first. I'm a giant comics book fan. I did most of my reading in the 70s and the early 80s and only occasionally do I pick up comic books now. I've been reading the Spider-Mans and some of the Batmans. But my workload is so intense that I don't have the time to chew gum, sit on the bed and flip through the comics like I used to.

Tobey Maguire: I wasn't extremely familiar with the Spider-Man comics. I know of the character. I just haven't read the comics. I went back and I read like the first three and a half years of Spider-Man.

Ian Bryce: I have a 5-year-old son. I know them all.

Question: For Kirsten Dunst, are you worried about getting typecast in genre films?

Kirsten Dunst: Genre films? Like what do you mean? Jumanji was when I like 13. It wasn't like Jumanji. Spider-Man. Small Soldiers. I think I've broken them up with enough with the independent films I've done like The Virgin Suicides. For me, every character I've portrayed is so different. I also have a movie called At 17 coming up that's completely different than anything anybody has ever seen me in. My goal is to always stay a moving target so that nobody can ever put their finger on me. That's the last thing I want is for people to see me as one thing.

Question: How important will New York City be to the movie?

Ian Bryce: We will shoot part of the movie in Los Angeles and part of the movie in New York. We've tried to be very responsible about how much of the movie can be done in New York. As people probably know, New York is difficult to shoot in in certain ways. All of our stage work will certainly be done in Los Angeles, because that's how it's always done and we're a Los Angeles-based show.

We have several week of exterior photography in New York, which is typically the approach that we take. The balance of the work will be here and we will be shooting some scenes in Los Angeles on the streets that we're playing for New York.

As Sam said, we've got a great design team and we're able to create that illusion with no loss of creativity.

Question: For Tobey Maguire, how did you profit from working with Michael Caine and Michael Douglas. For James Franco, how does it compare working on a character like James Dean, who is real, to Harry Osborn, who is in the comics?

Tobey Maguire: They're both great examples. I'll take them individually. Michael Douglas was wonderful. I've loved working with him. That was the best time I've had working on a movie and he was one of the reasons. We would hang out and talk about basketball and watch basketball games and we'd be on the set and he'd be five minutes early, very prepared and full of fresh, new ideas. I really look up to him.

Michael Caine was wonderful. Again, really prepared. Really loose and free and had lots of ideas. I've been fortunate to work with people who are really talented and I'm just as excited about being on this show with the cast I'm with here.

James Franco: I'm getting the chance to work with Sam Raimi and Mark Rydell. James Dean is a real person. I met his friends and I could look back into real history. In this, I read comic books. With James Dean, I got a real respect for a genius in our craft and I'm learning how he made his way. I guess delving into this imaginary world of Spider-Man is taking me back to my childhood or something like that.

Question: Does the script leave room for sequels? Avi Arad: One of the nice things about our ongoing soap operas, something like Spider-Man obviously will have sequels. I guess you'll have to see the movie and figure out what's coming next. There will be some hints.

E-Mail the Continuum at roballs@aol.com



Return to the Continuum home page


Copyright © 2000, The Comics Continuum