Two years ago, in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” our web-slinging hero spent his time focused on one supervillain, the Lizard.
He chased his reptilian foe through sewers, stopped him from tossing cars over the side of the Williamsburg Bridge and battled it out atop the OscorpmTower before landing the Lizard in jail. But, as they say, a sequel needs to be bigger — and, in the case of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” out Friday, it needed to be badder.
This time around, Spidey (played by Andrew Garfield) battles not one but three bad guys: Electro (Jamie Foxx), Rhino (Paul Giamatti) and the Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan). If three sounds like a lot, just imagine six.
Sony has announced two spinoffs starring villains, “Venom” and “The Sinister Six,” which will be released in between the upcoming third (out June 2016) and fourth installments of the mainstay “Spider- Man” series.
This marks a major moment for comic-book movies, as it will be the first time a film has been led by a single villain (Venom), let alone a supergroup of them (the Sinister Six).
It seems to buck conventional film wisdom: How do you focus the heart of a movie on someone who doesn’t have a heart? How is the star of the movie not the hero? This new focus actually aligns with the ideology of Stan Lee, Spider-Man’s co-creator (he cameos in “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” at Peter Parker’s graduation).
“The villain is really the most important [character], as the series moves along. There are very few surprises that are left for the hero, because, after a few issues have gone by, the reader knows pretty much all there is to know about the hero,” he said in the 1999 “Comics Buyer’s Guide.” “The villain, on the other hand, is, it’s to be hoped, interesting and exciting in every issue. It’s how the hero will beat the villain that will keep the readers coming back.”
That’s all well and good, but are audiences ready to invest in a movie focused on the bad guy? “The notion that a villain can be front and center … is an important trend,” says box office.com’s chief analyst, Phil Contrino. “The way that ‘Maleficent’ [Disney’s May 30 film about the villain of ‘Sleeping Beauty’] performs could be an indicator.”
As for Friday’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2,” there is a precedent for the webslinger battling a trio of villains: 2007’s oft-maligned “Spider-Man 3,” directed by Sam Raimi, featured the New Goblin, Sandman and Venom. It was also criticized for being bloated.
“I was certainly conscious of what had come before,” the director of the current series, Mark Webb, tells The Post. “[But] I think it was about how these villains were integrated and what the intention was behind that.”
In other words, Webb’s movie narrows in on what makes for the best story.
“There are so many movies of this nature that have multiple villains, but his main adversary is Electro,” he says.
“Rhino is teased, and Harry Osborn emerges into the other character in a way that I think is really organic and … an indication of what’s to come.”
And those three villains aren’t the only ones teased. This time around, B.J. Novak has a small role as Alistair Smythe, who in the comics eventually becomes the Ultimate Spider-Slayer. Felicity Jones plays Felicia Hardy — aka the comics’ Black Cat, a slinky cat burglar.
“At the beginning of this movie, [the screenwriters] and I were talking about what’s to come and what we’re going to pull from the comics. There are so many characters, like Venom, that we want to give service to, but felt they probably warranted movies unto themselves,” he says. “It wasn’t like the studio was like, ‘You gotta make this.’ It was a bunch of nerds sitting around a table talking about what would be cool.”
There’s also the question of whether or not flooding the market with villains could dilute the Spider-Man series. Contrino says it’s dependent on how the current movie is received.
No matter what, Webb says it all harks back to Spider-Man.
“You’ve got to think about the protagonist,” he says. “You’ve got to think about the hero and what he’s trying to accomplish.”
Meet the formidable foes
Electro
Played by: Jamie Foxx
Alter ego: Max Dillon, an Oscorp employee who acquires superhuman abilities after falling into a tank filled with electric eels. He becomes dangerously obsessed with the wall-crawler after a chance encounter.
Powers: Electro is like a human generator and can control electricity and shoot powerful bolts from his hands.
First appearance: 1964’s “Amazing Spider-Man” #9
Previous big-screen appearances: none
Costume: While much of what you see is CGI energy, Foxx donned blue body and face paint, as well as a very form-fitting rubber suit outfitted with electrodes.
“The whole thing is meant to look like it’s molded to his body from the heat of the electricity,” explains costume designer Deborah Lynn Scott. “If he gained a pound, he couldn’t fit into his costume.”
Fun fact: A 2010 episode of “Stan Lee’s Superhumans” TV show profiled Raj Mohan Nair, a real Electro who can conduct 200 volts. It showed Nair sticking a live wire in his mouth and lighting a bulb held in his hands.
The Green Goblin
Played by: Dane DeHaan
Alter ego: Harry Osborn, a childhood friend of Peter and the new CEO of Oscorp, who turns evil and disfigured after taking an experimental serum meant to cure a hereditary disease.
Powers: The villain wears a suit of armor and flies around on a powerful glider.
First appearance: 1964’s “Amazing Spider- Man” #14
Previous big screen appearances: Willem Dafoe portrayed Norman Osborn, who became the unhinged villain in 2002’s “Spider-Man” (James Franco played Harry, his son — who became the “New Goblin”).
Costume: For all of the costumes this go-around, director Marc Webb wanted a look that gave more of a comic-book feel than the previous film. For the Green Goblin, that meant fashioning a complex outfit with a skeletal layer, a tendon layer and a shell to create a movable lifelike machine that mimicked the human body. The 50-pound suit was manufactured in New Zealand and is meant to look like a prototype. Without giving too much away, “The character . . . needs this exosuit to survive and operate in the world,” says Scott.
Fun fact: Legend has it that artist Steve Ditko, the reclusive co-creator of Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, clashed with writer Stan Lee over the revelation of the Goblin’s identity. Lee insisted it be someone Peter Parker knew under the mask; Ditko wanted someone random.
Rhino
Played by: Paul Giamatti
Alter ego: Aleksei Sytsevich, a Russian mobster who battles Spider-Man while trying to steal plutonium.
Powers: Sytsevich has a suit of armor that makes him nearly indestructible and allows him to bash through almost anything — including superheroes.
First appearance: 1966’s “Amazing Spider-Man” #41
Previous big-screen appearances: none
Costume: “Sadly for me, it’s completely CG,” says Scott, with a laugh. Webb confirms he went the mechanical route because the comic depiction wouldn’t work on screen.
“In the comics, there’s this guy who has a hoodie pulled over his head with a horn coming out,” he explains. “There’s things that work in [flat] illustration, but it’s very different on a literal level of what you can actually shoot.”
Fun fact: In a 1967 episode of the Spider-Man cartoon, the webslinger defeats Rhino by puncturing a container of black pepper on the baddie’s horn, inducing a sneezing fit.
Will the beloved damsel perish?
Gwen Stacy dies in the comic book . . .but would the filmmakers be crazy enough to kill off the golden goose that is Emma Stone?
Last summer, when paparazzi photos showed Emma Stone on the New York set of “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” as Gwen Stacy, comic-book geeks across the country wet their Spidey bedsheets.
(Warning: possible spoilers ahead).
In the issue, the Green Goblin throws Gwen off a bridge; Spider-Man shoots out a web to save her from the fall, but — in a cruel twist of fate — as it catches her, Gwen’s neck snaps.
“Readers . . . weren’t used to a character dying, especially when it wasn’t undone after a issue or two,” says Sean Howe, author of the bestselling book
“Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.” “A lot of people . . . see that moment as the end of the innocence for superheroes.”
That’s precisely why director Marc Webb pursued the arc.
“The Gwen Stacy saga is profoundly controversial, and I wasn’t sure if the studio would let me do it,” he tells The Post.
“It was something I’d been passionate about for a long time, and I felt liberated and enthusiastic [about doing it] in a way that was invigorating.”
All the year-round attention paid to the pair’s real-life romance yields the kind of press a movie can’t buy.
There’s also the character of Mary Jane Watson to consider. Shailene Woodley was originally cast as Spider-Man’s other love interest for the sequel, but her scenes were cut.
Of course, some have suggested that it’s all been a big fakeout — that Webb knew the photos would get out and people would assume Gwen Stacy was getting offed, and therefore, he’ll battle expectations by keeping her alive. (Spoilers are readily available online, since the film has already opened in the UK) One thing’s for sure: If Gwen goes, it’s a whole new ballgame.
“It’s not the throw that kills her — Spider-Man snaps her neck by shooting the web, so he has this additional layer of awfulness,” says Howe. “It was one more thing to make Peter Parker a neurotic wreck.”