Spider-Man with Matt Singer

[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin

[00:01:38] and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David,

[00:02:57] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check

[00:04:22] with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David,

[00:05:09] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David,

[00:06:08] Right and it was like, for how much I think one of the things that people like to rag on with a little distance of like, it's the thing that happens, every time a superhero gets recast, people are like already? Again? Do we

[00:06:21] need another one? And then they immediately turn to what are the things that the last guy didn't pick up? If you have a character that's been around for 75 years no one is going to capture every element. So you're like what do we want to correct in the next

[00:06:32] And it was always, Toby was too old. Toby was too old. He didn't read as a high schooler and I guess. And he wasn't funny. He wasn't quippy. He's not, he's just not. No, he was playing the soap opera romanticism of Peter Parker.

[00:06:47] But it was funny that to George it was like, I don't know if I should say it, it might be, whatever. Well, you've said it like eight times. I know, no one knows what his last name is. Sure. Clinton, the Parliament Funkadelic.

[00:07:00] It's funny that to him it was just like, oh, Toby's like a kid and now he's old. Sure. That I do think there's something in this performance where you're like, he is playing a boy and even though he's not realistically looking like a teenager, you accept it.

[00:07:15] He looks okay in this one. The later ones, he definitely starts to look too old. But this one he's fine. I have no problem with it because it is of a piece of this movie that feels like throwbacky

[00:07:25] and it's not, you know, Hollywood would cast a 20 year old. But it is funny when it's him Dunstan Manginello. You know, especially Joe Manginello where you're like, this guy's supposed to be what, 70 years old? This guy like owns a home at this point. He has a mortgage.

[00:07:40] He's got a mortgage. But no, I don't care. Dunstan's like 20 when they filmed this? No, she was younger. She like turned 18 while they were shooting it. Let's see, yes, that's right. She was, yeah, she was like maybe 90. She was born in 82. Okay. And Toby McGuire.

[00:07:54] They mentioned that in the commentary. I don't want to make it seem like I just know Tristan Dunstan's birthday. Actually kind of crazy. Toby McGuire's seven years older than her. Yeah. Yeah, he, right. But he was so boyish. Yes, that's the thing. Totally.

[00:08:06] The voice helps him a lot. As much as I was doing my parody, it's like that helps him a lot that he did have such a, his voice never dropped. No, never really has. Right, and he's got such a boyish face

[00:08:18] and that sort of like puppy dog energy. Well, yeah, I just wanted to sort of, just wanted to say, it seems like based on the conversation thus far, the three of you big Spider-Man fans, really cool guys growing up. Super cool. Super cool guys. Yeah, nailed it.

[00:08:34] I just wanted to sort of early on just be a voice on mic representing the people that, you know, Spider-Man's cool. I'm not a fan. Like I'm not a fan of Spider-Man. I mean, I like them. I like the movies.

[00:08:48] I haven't seen though any of the other franchises. I've only seen this franchise. Well, that's not true. Well, you've seen the Marvel movies. We watched you watch. Right, we watched them for the show. Oh my God, those are so forgettable. Sorry. They're a little forgettable. Yeah, you're right.

[00:09:02] I did see the Garfield movies. No. Yeah, which you don't need to. No, no, that's fine. There's the only reason you might enjoy them is that the tech is so like uniquely bad in them. It's like really bad.

[00:09:13] I do a lot of good like LCD screens with nonsense CGI. A lot of bio computers. Yeah, a lot of that. But apart from that. He bings instead of, he doesn't use Google, he uses Bing, I think. Yeah, he bings constantly. He bings the fuck out of everything.

[00:09:26] He bings Who Are My Parents? He's like binging like, where is the subway? Like he has to Bing. He's looking for his, it's a long story. We don't need to talk about it. His dad has a secret subway station underground. There's a secret abandoned subway station

[00:09:40] where when he figures out what the code is. No, he has to put a subway token into a subway token thing and a car, a subway car rises out of the ground. An abandoned subway car. I'm glad I know. No memory of that.

[00:09:55] It feels like some Ninja Turtles. Yeah, right. Blank Man, remember he hangs out in an abandoned subway station. Yeah, but it's like that. It's funny, I like that. It's a good bit. And he had a boob. That's a bit in Amazing Spider-Man. Not a bit, no.

[00:10:10] That was always cool. That was one of my favorite ones. Ben is glowing. So Spider-Man, Ben goes, yeah, it's fine. Blank Man, Ben lit up. Blank Man is a movie. Now we're talking. That's a superhero. I mean, when this movie's coming out, it's like superhero movies.

[00:10:24] Okay, well there's been Superman, there's been Batman. They just had an X-Men movie. And then you're kind of like, I don't know, Meteor Man, Blank Man? Like how many others have there been? Right. Played, I guess. No, truly. Steel. Steel. Watch out for, Spawn.

[00:10:37] A lot of the ones that were done, like Spawn was an A-list character relative to most of the characters that were getting solo movies. Because a lot of them were like, we're not gonna burn the big ones. We're gonna do Supergirl. Yeah, sure. We're gonna do Steel.

[00:10:50] We're gonna do, you know, it was like. Well, because that was the thing. It's like, now if Warner Brothers is like we're doing a Steel movie, it'd be like every A-list African American actor is vying for this role. Back then it was like, I don't know,

[00:11:03] anyone wanna be Steel? And everyone was like no. And Shaq was like, I mean, okay, I'll be in a movie. What's the movie? I believe it's even weirder than that. I believe it's that Shaq had the Superman tattoo. Yes, he loved Superman. And someone algorithmically was like,

[00:11:18] we should just do that, right? Like the whole movie was built around him. I don't think the film would have gotten made if not for him. I think you're right. Although I think partly Quincy Jones produced it and he was also a huge Steel fan.

[00:11:30] Again, the 90s, look, things were happening. But this is my point. It was just sort of like, I don't know, if Shaq wants to play Steel, I guess we let that happen as a vanity project. Quincy's behind it, you know? Right. Very, very strange.

[00:11:43] Look, we're talking about a guy named Spiderman today. We are talking about Spider-Man. I remember the Time Out New York review of this movie. I was so excited for all the- The Time Out New York review? Who is it by? I couldn't tell you.

[00:11:57] I don't know if you want to look it up, baby. I'll try. I don't think Time Out has a great archive. Yeah, that might be tough to find. Also, there's been a lot of Spider-Man movies. I so badly was looking for,

[00:12:09] I think like many young comic book fans are now, the validation of like, I want critics to take this movie seriously. Oh my God. As a 13 year old, I needed that so badly. That's true. I was so much older. It's true. Well, you weren't that much older.

[00:12:22] You're like a year older than me. I was 65. No, I was 21. Okay, you're four or five years old. I was 16. Yeah, I was 13. It's 2002 summer, so I was 21. Right. I just remember the Time Out New York making a big point of the hyphen.

[00:12:36] It was almost like the master builder what a difference an A makes, where they go, Ramy has focused on the hyphen in his take on the material. Oh, like the idea being like- The space between man and spider. Oh my gosh. Wow.

[00:12:50] I just remember that that was like, and it was, you know, it was Time Out New York, the review was like a paragraph, but they were like, the hyphen is really what- That feels kind of like the critic who I now really want to look up

[00:13:00] who it was being like, what the fuck is my lead for this? I was gonna say, he probably wrote it before he even saw the movie. Yeah, like what's an angle I can have that no one else can have? Right.

[00:13:09] And then whoever wrote the New York Times review, I think- A.O. Scott. Yeah, I remember that being like, this fucking Defoe thing. Tom Charity wrote the Time Out review. Can you find the hyphen line? No, but, so I don't,

[00:13:26] but like this may not be from Time Out New York. It doesn't matter, keep going. Whatever, whatever. I just always remember the hyphen in the name because of that. Oh, I see. So I got you on that tangent just with my little joke. I'm sorry.

[00:13:37] Yeah, no, it's fine. Cause of course I tell you about when I worked at the Disney store and you were supposed to put your favorite Disney character on your name tag. I asked for it to be Spider-Man and I said, don't forget the hyphen.

[00:13:47] And they said, they're sending it to Disney legal. They're not going to forget the hyphen. And then I got a name tag with no hyphen that made it look like my name was Griffin Spiederman. Like it was just my last name.

[00:13:57] So this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. Spiederman. And this is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear

[00:14:13] and sometimes they swing across the New York city skyline, baby. Rex Reed, not a fan. I'm just looking at the- Oh get out, come on. I don't believe that. This year movies are like botany. Summer blooms are opening a month early.

[00:14:26] He's complaining that it's coming out in May. People were fearing. A very trite complaint. Oh so now this is another month of this shit? First week of May, tip of May? Wow. Then Rex Reed swerves into, when I was a kid, I liked Captain Marvel and Superman

[00:14:39] and considered Spider-Man a bus and truck version of Batman. What does that mean? Bus and truck? Does he call Kirsten Dunst hired? Like I feel like a Rex Reed. 18 year old Dunst is over the hill. Yes, he says, created to enthrall readers under the age of 10.

[00:14:59] By 10 I had graduated from Nancy and Sluggo to Archie, Benny and Veronica. Rex Reed really getting into his comic reading habits as a child. Rex Reed sounding like multiple episodes of our podcast where we do 20 minute tangents on comic strips recently. Calls Toby McGuire goony. What?

[00:15:16] Remarks that their row house in Queens is ugly. I mean, leave him alone. They're trying to earn a salary. Wow. Let's see. This is a pretty good review by Rex Reed, I gotta say. It's pretty, you know, just laying out all the mustard.

[00:15:32] Does like James Franco's recent performances, Jane Dean, James Dean shouts that out. What a surprise. Says the Green Goblin looks like a laminated praying mantis wearing an Islanders mask. All right. Eight out of 10. That's not wildly inaccurate. That's not a bad dunk. It's not a bad dunk.

[00:15:51] And says the funniest actor is not Mr. Defoe who hisses like a leaky radiator. Rex Reed, working the body right now, but J.K. Simmons, who has sprouted a full head of hair in a versatile turnaround from his bald sexual predator he plays on Oz.

[00:16:06] Mostly impressed by the haircut I guess. He's like, I never would have imagined this guy actually grew hair somehow. This man, and a feat I've never seen an actor achieve before. Uh. Willed himself into. Some people gain weight for roles. He figured out how to regrow his hair.

[00:16:23] I'm sorry, Kirsten Dunst, she finally weighs in. I liked her better as a blonde. Oh boy. Sure, Rex. Cliff Robertson is a warm, nicest uncle a spider ever had, but what can you do with lines like with great power comes great responsibility?

[00:16:36] Was he not supposed to say it? I was like, what the? It is funny that now that is like a line that. The idea that Rex was like, why would anyone say this in a Spider-Man movie? With great power comes great, get this out of here. Nonsense.

[00:16:50] It's just funny that there were like five, six movies with Tom Holland in them where people were like, I can't believe they're not saying it. I guess they're never gonna say it. They're just not gonna ever say it. Someone clearly read Rex Reed's review

[00:17:00] and was like, listen guys, we were way off on this. Rex is right, we're not saying it this time, ever. I just feel like that was a thing that was known, but post this movie that is like, everyone knows that line.

[00:17:11] You quote that, you understand that is the Spider-Man line. Sure, of course, it's the motto. It's all good. Look, we're talking about a very big movie today. I just wanna say he then swerves to his Hollywood ending review where he is like ravishing on praise.

[00:17:24] Best thing Woody Allen's done in years. Treat Williams, supporting actor, slam dunk. He calls it a 40 carat cinematic jewel. Jesus. What? It's not a, what did he call it? A bus and truck Woody Allen movie? Bus and truck Batman. It's not a bus and truck Woody Allen movie.

[00:17:39] That is for sure. Yeah, anyway. This is a mini series on the films of Sam Raimi. Oh, we haven't even introduced that. Okay, sorry. I was trying, David. You keep on going on these tangents and I wanna do a really focused episode with no sidebars.

[00:17:52] Ben Pinbo, soundtrack, action figures, and miscellaneous merchandise. I know I said both, but I added a thing. All right, all right, all right, all right, all right. Sam Raimi, that's the guy. And Ben also put a pin in a singular cross promotion, singular wireless cross promotion.

[00:18:07] It's a mini series on the films of Sam Raimi. It's called Podcast Me Today. It's called Podcast Me to Hell. Today we are talking about Speeder hyphen man. We're talking about Spider-Man, his return to big budget filmmaking, I guess,

[00:18:24] after, well, I guess he never really made it big budget. Return to genre film. His return to genre filmmaking. Right. Well, the gift is kind of genre, but you know what I mean. His return to pop cinema. Less classy movies. Thank God.

[00:18:38] Get back into the popcorn machine, Sam. A film that changed Hollywood forever. Indeed. And has shaped the landscape we currently have in cinema. Right? Changed. This is it. Changed Hollywood. So many ways. For sure. This is the beginning of everything. Okay, I mean, my interest has peaked.

[00:19:00] Please go on. No, because I think the big thing is. You know this movie's quite successful then? Yes. I knew that. I mean, I know it's a huge. It's no blank man, but. Right. It's no blank man. It's a huge pop culture thing like,

[00:19:11] I mean, that reached at least our, the millennials, right? It's like our Spider-Man and I guess, you know, obviously there's fans that continue to revisit like you're saying your cousin. Yeah, no, I think it's also getting reclaimed by a lot of the Zoomers.

[00:19:25] I mean, if r slash Remy memes is to be believed, I think a younger generation has come around to these movies as well. There was a period where I think people were like these fucking quoted words. They were really looked down on for a long time.

[00:19:39] Especially, I would say obviously the third movie was poorly received at the time. But like, I do feel like this movie's reputation had really gone down. Yeah, very far down. Including with me. Like me in hindsight, I was like, well that movie is kind of prototypical

[00:19:52] and the second one is the one that's really good. But all of them are like, the reputation was they're hokey, they're cheesy, they're too sincere. There's no comedy. No comedy, right? Yes. Which is funny because these movies are so much more comedies in genre

[00:20:11] than any of the later Spider-Man films. But they were like, but Spider-Man isn't funny. It's true, these movies are like old Hollywood comedies. You and I were texting about it. They're like Vincent Minnelli movies. They're like Stanley Donen films. They're old MGM musical comedies, they feel like.

[00:20:27] And now of course, right, now most superhero movies are quite serious and grounded. Not all of them, there's so many fucking superhero movies that you can. But the way in which they're funny is very different from this. Yeah, and even the new Holland one,

[00:20:43] you talked about it, how like Holland for the first chunk of that press tour was like, this is like the saddest, most serious Spider-Man ever. I cried making it. At a certain point apparently Sony was like, can you chill out? You say it's fun?

[00:20:55] Well yeah, you're bumming everyone out. Like and yeah, it does have that tone of like, this is important and serious. And this has the right tone I think. That is not goofy or flippant about the source material but is. We were watching it through the night

[00:21:13] and we were texting about it and we were just like this fucking tone. You cannot believe that this was his tape, that they approved it and that he executed it from beginning to end. And I think I always liked this movie with some reservations.

[00:21:28] I think even when I went to see it like amped up to the fucking nines, I was like, it's not a masterpiece. It like has magic in it. It's got some stuff really right. Only it's like, you know. Rewatching the trailers, you forget how much more

[00:21:45] they tried to sell it as being like cool and bad ass. The ultimate spin. Right, and like the trailers use the fucking Matrix score. Just at the right at the start. I know, I know. But then what do they use? Then what do they use?

[00:21:59] I just rewatched them. Not that though. I wanna take you for a ride. Well that, they do use, leave you far behind by fucking what are they called? Which was also on the Matrix soundtrack. But they also use Danny Elfman's Planet of the Apes score. Oh right. Weird.

[00:22:14] Probably just, Lunatic Calm, sorry, is the name of the band. Wow. I needed to get that right. That was the last time I was on blank check. This is a weird. Planet of the Apes, that's right. This is a weird coincidence. You love Elfman scores.

[00:22:25] Yeah, that's my thing. Yeah. That's what my tattoo says. Our guest today is Matt Singer by the way. Wrote the book on Spider-Man. Wrote the book on Spider-Man. A book on Spider-Man. What is the full property? The only one! It's Marvel's Spider-Man colon. From amazing to spectacular.

[00:22:41] From amazing to spectacular colon. The definitive comic art collection. I'm glad I clarified you're a fan of Spider-Man. Yes. I am. Ben read with embarrassment. Producer Ben actually embarrassed not playing it up. I have to ask, in titling that book did you ever regret the fact

[00:23:01] that Marvel never came up with a Spider-Man comic that had a Z in the title? So you could call it like from amazing to zany. That would've been better. I didn't. Spectacular doesn't quite take you to the end of the alphabet. I did not title the book.

[00:23:14] The book had a million titles that were the publisher ended up picking that title. But you're right, it would work a lot better. I have thought about this. The zany adventures of Spider-Man. From amazing to zany. Zectacular. Yeah, exactly. It would make more sense.

[00:23:30] So Matt, you like Spider-Man? Yes. Spider-Man. I also like Spider-Man. Sounds like Griffin likes Spider-Man too. He's one of my best friends, I would say. And we were all Spider-Man fans when this movie came out. I don't think I'd ever seen a, I had seen The Gift,

[00:23:47] because I actually saw The Gift in theaters. I don't know that I'd seen another Sam Raimi movie in 2002. We had a very different experience. I must have seen at least a couple of evil did. Yeah, I guess I had just seen those. I'm trying to remember.

[00:24:01] I don't think I'd seen like A Simple Plan or Quick and the Dead or those little ones. I'm trying to remember if I watched them right before or right after this. You were a little older. And you're a freaking Kim's video guy. You were a, yeah.

[00:24:11] Well, I wasn't there yet. I know you weren't yet. But I mean, I had the experience where I saw, when I saw Spider-Man, it was like basically my favorite director making my favorite character. So it was a mind blowing event. Hearing, I guess the internet,

[00:24:25] how did we hear that Sam Raimi was making, this is what I'm trying to remember. Yeah, it was the internet, I think. I mean, the internet was big enough. So for me, like a couple of, I guess two years before this, I was in college.

[00:24:36] I had never seen a Sam Raimi movie. And then I was the biggest nerd at school. Like I had no friends, I had no nothing. And I was- You had nothing? Nothing. Sent to your name. I made Peter Parker look really cool from the beginning of this movie.

[00:24:52] Wait, if somebody told me that you were just an average ordinary guy, not a care in the world. That person lied. So, but I went to school at Syracuse and they had on campus movies and they would do a new movie

[00:25:06] and a midnight movie that was somehow vaguely related. Okay. Sure. And I would just go every week because I had no friends and nothing else to do. Cool. That I went this particular week, they showed the mummy or the mummy returns. I actually- One of the Brendan Fraser.

[00:25:20] Yes. Yes. It was not the dark universe yet, sadly. Well, I mean, it wasn't a Karloff mummy or- No, no, no. Sadly- It was the Brendan Fraser mummy, one of those. And the midnight movie was army of darkness, which I hadn't seen. A classic midnight movie. Yeah.

[00:25:35] And it was sold out. And I had like, they only vaguely knew that movie from like comics, from like reading Spider-Man comics. And there was a period when that movie came out, it was the inside cover- Oh sure. Of every Marvel comic for like six months.

[00:25:49] They knew their audience. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I'd never seen it. I grew up in New Jersey. Nope, like I didn't have any cool movie friends. Like it was just- No one was passing you VHSs. You had a founder, a David T. Griffin.

[00:26:01] Basically, no, I didn't have one. A Griffin T. David. So the movie starts and the audience is potentially drunk stoned. They're losing their minds. They know every line. You could not ask for a better movie experience ever. And it was like a bomb went off in my brain.

[00:26:18] And I immediately was like, whoever made this, because I didn't know who Sam Raimi was, I was like, this is my new god. Right. And I immediately just like fell into Sam Raimi obsession. So when they say, Sam Raimi is making Spider-Man, it's like, no, that's too good.

[00:26:35] That can't be. It can't be. That can't be right. And so yeah, so when this movie comes out, I mean, I've never been, I think you said, Griffin, you were like one of the most excited times you've ever been for a movie. It's way up there.

[00:26:48] There's no question. This is the most excited I have ever been and probably will ever be. Were you? Well, not to go full circle, but it's like the only thing that, not the only one, but like, Planet of the Apes is in that tier.

[00:27:00] It's like the bright Planet of the Apes. Oh right, I remember how much you love Planet of the Apes. Right. And Burton was your guy. First Spider-Man, Toy Story 2. I feel like those are the ones where I was just like,

[00:27:08] my sense of self is riding on this movie. Yeah, because you're young enough also that you're just like, this has to be good. It has to be good. I don't know what I do with myself if this isn't good. Right. I was a huge X-Men nerd.

[00:27:20] So the X-Men movie was probably more exciting for me in that, although not that I was like a big usual suspects fan. So I didn't have that, but I was truly like, they better nail this. Right. This movie, I was a huge Spider-Man fan.

[00:27:31] I think I was calmer about it. I think I was like, this looks good. See. If that makes sense. I was going in fairly confident. I was going to say, I got super amped for X-Men, but I think the fact that I then enjoyed X-Men

[00:27:43] amped me up more for this. Sure, that's part of it. Like I think X-Men was about as amped as I did for a movie at that point. Right, right. That was like the proof of concept. Right. Because before that there's basically, other than Blade,

[00:27:54] there's like no Marvel movies at all. Those are the only like comic book movies anyone had ever seen and they didn't feel like comic book movies. They felt like something else. Right. But this is this other thing. You have like Spider-Man, you have Superman and Batman, right?

[00:28:08] Who, especially at that point in time are just the two most iconic American superheroes. Yeah, they're famous. And they have been successfully adapted to TV several times and then they make them work as modern movies. Yeah. So there's a 70s Superman run

[00:28:23] and nothing else that tries to imitate that works and those movies diminish, right? And then you have your 80s into 90s Batman run and none of the movies that try to imitate it work and then those movies diminish. And it really is like the only two

[00:28:36] that they will put the muscle behind adapting are the two big guys. Right. You know, that's like, that's all that's gonna work. And then X-Men I think was such a turnkey in terms of like this isn't Blade, this isn't Steel.

[00:28:48] This is like one of the things that we all know but X-Men has to couch everything they're doing and like we're gonna make this look like a adult movie. I felt, I was okay with it because I was like yeah, whatever you can do to sneak this. Exactly.

[00:29:02] So like Spider-Man here shooting it out of his wrists. I was just like, that's fine. Yeah, whatever, whatever, whatever. I was not complaining. No. I was just like, it's okay. I get that you have to get everyone on board. The context that people like younger people today

[00:29:14] do not understand is that like comic book movies were and comic books in general were looked at as like garbage. Garbage. Like I, so this is 2002. Bus and truck material. Bus and truck material. We talked about this. Four years before this, I'm in high school

[00:29:30] and I did everything in my power to make sure no one ever found out I liked comics and read comics. I wouldn't bring them to school. I would hide them. This is like, it was like. Absolutely. You know, and this is a time when like

[00:29:41] pro wrestling is cool. So it's not like, you know what I mean? Like a lot of goofy shit is cool. Yes, but comics are like, you don't get caught dead by the comic book. Someone's gonna kick a sandcastle into your face if they find your DVD combo.

[00:29:51] People are gonna knock my books out of my hand in the hallway. No one can know. And even after Batman, which is huge, like by the, Batman doesn't change that because Batman and Robin is a goof. Right. I mean, I kind of enjoy Batman and Robin

[00:30:04] for what it is, but it doesn't change the perception that comics are for dorks. They're weird. They're stupid. They're goofy. Right. Yeah. Right, right. There was nothing badass about it and then I think X-Men was. And even X-Men, which is a good movie

[00:30:18] for what it is, but they were like, we're gonna dress them like they're in the Matrix. They'll wear leather. Right, there's only gonna be a few of them. Right. And they really tried to. We're going like Christine and Tony with the vibe of the Holocaust thing

[00:30:29] and the civil rights thing and all that. That's like such a statement of that movie of being like, we're gonna lead with the subtext. The stars are British actors in their like late 50s. Like those are the names in this movie. Wait, what, Ben, what'd you wanna say?

[00:30:43] Well, I was just gonna interject and say that I did have a relationship to these characters, but through video games and through the animated shows. That's true. There was a lot of the cartoons obviously, and then right, a lot of Super Nintendo games where you're Spider-Man or Batman

[00:30:59] or Wolverine or whatever. I do think that I felt that same, like we're both from Jersey. I definitely saw the kids getting their books knocked out of their hands because they had comic books. You saw me. Did we go to the same high school? I don't know.

[00:31:12] Was yours underground and just like filled with like shrapnel and just like rusty objects? Ben creating an ironclad alibi that he only saw the books getting knocked out of your hands. I wasn't doing it. I witnessed this type of thing happening, of course.

[00:31:31] I was just gonna say though, yeah, the animated show I think was like for a lot of kids an access point for Marvel. That's true. Saturday morning show I think was really like the way for regular non maybe nerdy kids to access those characters.

[00:31:47] We will dig into the weird development history of this movie across decades, but there's this circular thing that I talked about before, which is Marvel is like near bankruptcy, but they do the X-Men cartoon, and the X-Men cartoon explodes. And it like-

[00:32:02] That's why I got into comic books. Exposes all these characters on a wider scale, right? People know deep X-Men characters now. This sort of like third tier toy company, Toy Biz gets the rights for the action figures, and they sell so many toys that when Marvel

[00:32:15] is on the brink of true filing for bankruptcy, Toy Biz buys Marvel. And then the machinery becomes, we have to do a Saturday morning cartoon or syndicated cartoon of every one of these fucking things and pump out as many figures as we can,

[00:32:28] as many video games as you can. So the 90s do work as this perfect launching pad to be able to run with these movies when you get to the 2000s, because like these characters are all now back in rotation. You're retelling many of the most iconic stories.

[00:32:42] But yes, I think that was a thing where I was so fucking amped for X-Men. And then the fact that X-Men, like that check cleared in my mind. And then you start seeing the materials for Spider-Man, and you're like, shit, they're just doing the costume? Right.

[00:32:55] I remember, I mean, I vividly remember the first time I saw the official press photo of the costume. You couldn't believe it. And it really was shocking, especially even after X-Men, where X-Men's good, but they're all dressed like Matrix characters.

[00:33:09] The whole story with X-Men was they were like, we tested the yellow costume on Wolverine, it looked bad, we couldn't do it. It won't read on camera at all. Do either of you guys remember when Alex Ross did his, he published, I remember reading it in Wizard

[00:33:25] or Toy Fair magazine or something, but I don't know where it originally came from, but he was like- His concept art for this movie? Yeah, he was like, I have not been hired to do it, but I thought I'm so in the camp

[00:33:35] of wanting to support this movie that here, just pro bono are my ideas for how you could update Spider-Man to make these costumes look cool in a modern context. Right. And you were like, what a cool design,

[00:33:46] but it was still couched in the idea that he was like, they can't just fucking put the suit on screen. Right. I have to make this look hipper. And then they were just like, I watched all the fucking special features of everything last night,

[00:33:58] but they talked so much about a year of just, we know we want to do the suit. The question is just the way to execute it. And it was just the back and forth of like, how raised are the webs? What shade of red and blue?

[00:34:12] What shape are the eyes? But they were like, there was no question that the big move here was, it's going to be Spider-Man in red and blue with the webbing and the big white eye. And I feel like that was the thing that when we talk about,

[00:34:24] actually this was a really important movie and like influential, like that was it. It was like, we're not going to pretend that this isn't a comic book. They're like, this is a comic book. This is Spider-Man. Superman did that. Right, sure. But Batman didn't. Batman didn't.

[00:34:39] And then everything that followed that Absolutely. Was kind of like, yeah. Superman just has this kind of literary like history in a weird way. It's seen as like, well, that's sort of an important American invention. Right. But he is Superman, right? And you can start to start catching

[00:34:55] and Spider-Man is like, I don't know. That was the thing. The important thing is that nerds have always been treated poorly and that's why we deserve everything coming to us and all control over pop culture. Right? Right. Okay, good. We all agree.

[00:35:09] Yeah, and power is not corrupting us. Absolutely. No, of course not. Society is not collapsing. Well, that's because we've learned that with great power comes great responsibility. So we would never do anything. This is a thing that every nerd on the internet has really taken apart. Yes.

[00:35:20] Oh boy. But I'm just, you know, that's what I was just trying. We can talk about the development of the movie now, but like, I'm just trying to remember that mindset of like this being exciting and new and different. It's another, it's like another universe.

[00:35:35] It's kind of crazy that it's like in, like how vivid this time is in my mind. Right. But like, I feel like, you know, your nephew or whatever is just gonna have no concept of that sort of. There was nothing like these in theaters.

[00:35:48] I mean, ain't it cool loading it up and being like, it's gonna take five minutes for the photo to load and seeing it go an inch by inch. Oh yeah. When it was like the X-Men costumes being revealed. Right? Right.

[00:35:59] And there was that feeling of you were like, huh. And you have to like sit there and really think with you. You're like, what are they doing here? I guess that makes sense. That's okay. I guess that makes sense. Yeah. And it truly was that thing where when

[00:36:07] the Spider-Man photo loaded, the one I remember was him sort of crouched. Crouched on a corner of a building. It's like blue and like the lighting is very like blue and red on him. Right. Yep. And I think that was almost, it was maybe a leak.

[00:36:18] I remember seeing it in a club. I don't remember if it was official or not, but very soon after that was the teaser posters. Cause they had those a while in advance. And when you were just like, holy shit, the poster is him crawling on a building

[00:36:29] and it has colors and the suit looks like that. And you're telling me that's a real guy in there? But I wasn't interested in it, but then it told me it would be taken for the ultimate spin. And then I decided I was interested.

[00:36:39] This is what's funny to me is they still had to be like, this is cool. This is extreme like skateboarding. What are you kids like? The real life. Right. Like it created the PlayStation three font. It did. You know, really ghastly font.

[00:36:53] Like I get again at the time, I guess it was cool. Yeah. But like nothing about the font in the trailers and stuff. I like the title, you know, like the actual title card of this, like the opening credits are nice. But when you watch the trailers,

[00:37:07] Matt and I were talking about this before you showed up, like it's amazing how much this movie does not really feel tied to the early 21st century at all. When you watch the movie. Right. You know, you watch all things like Macy Gray,

[00:37:19] the DNA, you know, by and large it feels like, but then you watch all the marketing and you're like, oh my God, this is humiliating. It's sort of amazing and miraculous that while the marketing and the trailers and the soundtrack is like,

[00:37:33] so dated, the movie itself feels so timeless. It feels very timeless. Which is really like Macy Gray, who I guess now has passed into memory. And so it's sort of like, who's that? I know, but it is just funny where you're like, this was synergistic.

[00:37:47] Like this wasn't just. Well, Unity Day is a big deal. World Unity Day is a big deal. Do you guys have Unity Day plans? I'm gonna wear a kimono in honor of Unity Day, of course, and I'm gonna go hang out at the municipal building or whatever.

[00:38:00] Go look at the balloons in Times Square where there was always big oversized balloons. My favorite balloons. Love Times Square. Lumberjack, Russian dancer. Right. Weird dog. Weird dog. Weird dog. We all know the classic character. The classic character, Weird Dog.

[00:38:13] One of Stan Lee's other favorite creations, Weird Dog. True believers, wait until you meet Weird Dog. Excelsior! This dog ain't normal. Enough said. He's a weird dog. How do you get into Spider-Man? Great question. What's your opinion? You're a little older than me.

[00:38:29] Oh, for me it was the Electric Company. He was a character on the Electric Company. Was that when he was with Firestar and his amazing friend? No, that's the cartoon. That's Spider-Man and his amazing friend. Right, wait, Firestar and who was the, oh, it was Iceman, of course.

[00:38:44] Fireman, right. Fireman and Iceman. And Miss Lion, the dog. Of course. Which I also definitely watched, but that was a little later. Before that, so the Electric Company was like this PBS show. It was a- Yeah, Woden Freeman was in it? Yes, yeah, it was like a-

[00:38:58] Easy reader. Sister show to Sesame Street, basically. And Spider-Man had these segments where he was- He was the slightly older Sesame Street, right? It was like, I feel like Electric Company was sort of like- It's the 70s. It started in the 70s.

[00:39:09] No, no, no, I mean for slightly older audiences. Oh, sure, yeah. It was like, you're seven or eight now. You get to watch Electric Company. So, and the whole show was about teaching kids to read. And so Spider-Man had these, he never spoke. It was speech bubbles.

[00:39:23] But he would have word bubbles. So it was sort of teaching you to read the thought balloons and word bubbles. Right, exactly. And I was just totally smitten with this thing. The look. The look, the, right. It had nothing to do with being a dork or-

[00:39:34] No, it's just cool. Relating to the character. It was just the look of him and everything. And then, yeah, the cartoons and- Because I'm trying to remember. When you talk about being six and loving Spider-Man, like supposedly my, I don't remember this,

[00:39:47] but one of my very first words as a child was Spider-Man. Wow. I mean, that's a good claim. It was according to my parents. But it was not Spider-Man, it was Memeh. Right. That was how you were referring to him. But that shows you how young I was

[00:40:01] that Memeh was Spider-Man. It is funny, I mean, I feel like we'll talk about this sometimes, David, where we need to zoom out from a movie that we just all take for given, as a given. Right. And go like, how insane is it

[00:40:14] that that worked and that worked, right? And there's that primal element to Spider-Man where you're like, how insane is it that Stanley cracked this thing of like, here's how to put a relatable human being at the center of a story like this,

[00:40:25] and at the same time they nailed the costume that hard. That he is just so graphically compelling, you know? Yes. That you're almost like, there's a version in which you're like, he did this book though, it didn't sell, but it was the one where he cracked,

[00:40:38] and you can put an everyman in this situation, and then later they came up with this character that looked good, but the personality was- It is weird that Stanley was like, Spider-Man! And like, that was the thing that unlocked everything for Marvel.

[00:40:50] But everything that's compelling about his costume doesn't really have to do with spiders. I mean, there's obviously the webbing, but you're like, he's red and blue. Yeah, I mean, and his powers are spidery, but then also not, you know? Right. Not specifically the spider sense or whatever.

[00:41:04] And I was ranting at my wife yesterday where I'm like, you don't understand, there hadn't been a teenage hero. It was just like Robin, if you were a kid, you know, like I'm trying to lay out, like that was revolutionary. This has all been excavated obviously countless times.

[00:41:20] The legacy of Spider-Man. Well, and then he was sort of combining like Archie comics with superhero comics. That's the huge- When you reread them, and the Ditko run is extraordinary, and it still reads so well, and it's so fucking good. But yeah, so much of it is like,

[00:41:34] hey, you going to the dance, Peter? You know, like all that shit. You know, Liz Allen, that's the first girlfriend, right? Yep. Yeah, all that stuff. Yeah. No, it's wild, and that's the stuff that Raimi I think really has tapped into

[00:41:48] better than anyone else is that feeling of that early run, and like the teenager, you know, full of emotions and all that sort of stuff. Like even in two and three when he becomes an adult, it still has that sort of Archie feel to it.

[00:42:03] But yes, you look at the marketing, and they were trying so hard to sell it as like the movie of 2002. And I do remember sitting there in the theater being so excited and 20 minutes in being like, this is the tone?

[00:42:15] Like not being upset, being sort of like amazed that they had been able to hoodwink people. Yeah, how did they pull this off? I mean, that's the thing when you watch it today, and it feels so timeless. Right. And then you go look at the trailers

[00:42:27] and all this ancillary stuff, and they're trying so hard to be cool. Right. And the movie is not cool. And I mean that as a compliment. But it is not. There's nothing cool about it. And I think that's one of the reasons

[00:42:37] why maybe it became less popular over time. Of course. It doesn't have that like, it's not hip, it's not cool. But then again, Spider-Man isn't cool per se. No! Obviously Peter Parker is dorky. He should not be cool. Right. And he's supposed to be unlucky and always-

[00:42:51] That is another thing about this movie that's really great is that it doesn't try to make him cool, and it doesn't try to make the concept of Spider-Man cool. It believes in the concept. Yes. Desperately believes in the mythology of Spider-Man. Which is so helpful.

[00:43:06] When you talk about like those, the early Stan Lee, Steve Ditko comics, like that's one of the things that the movie captures is that that belief in with great power comes great responsibility. I'm very sorry Rex Reed, but like that is the-

[00:43:19] That is so important to the character. Apologies to Rex Reed. I mean that's the magic of Ditko where he's so crazy. He's such a crazy person that he really believes that when he's writing it. That is true. Yes. I mean, Steve Ditko is someone I'm obsessed with.

[00:43:34] And like you learn about all this stuff where he was like, the Green Goblin should just be an ordinary man. And there should be no, and the lesson should be, it could be anybody. And Stan Lee's like, what are you talking about? It should be Norman Osborn.

[00:43:45] That'd be a great plot twist. So that kind of like fire and ice of those guys is crucial to Spider-Man working, right? Like if it was just Ditko, it would probably be like all his other shit that's like bizarre and inscrutable.

[00:43:58] So it's so good that they were combined, but the Ditko part is what's so amazing. I'm like that all these elements lined up, these different sensibilities, personalities, the graphic elements. I love Steve Ditko. Have you ever, have I brought it up on the show before?

[00:44:15] Jonathan Ross did this documentary called In Search of Steve Ditko. No. Have you seen this? It was on the BBC. I know what it is, I haven't seen it. He literally goes try to find it. Because his whole thing is like, the guy's still alive.

[00:44:25] I'm obsessed with him. I've always loved him. In Search of Steve Ditko. In Search of Steve Ditko. He's got a lisp, you know, Jonathan Ross. And he like tries to meet him. Cause like the whole thing with Steve Ditko is still in his fucking office, right?

[00:44:37] Like drawing like, you know, trade illustrations or whatever. No one wanted it. And one of the best parts of it is he interviews John Romita, who took over Spider-Man after Steve Ditko. And apparently Ditko was like, just don't make Peter Parker handsome.

[00:44:54] Cause the way Ditko draws him, he looks like an alien. He's like so skinny. Very, yeah, skinny. And Romita is like, is saying to Jonathan Ross, and I promised him, I won't, I won't. And then I started drawing him.

[00:45:05] And Jonathan Ross is like, you drew him super handsome. He's like, I know, I can't help myself. And this Peter Parker actually got hot and kind of handsome. But like those early Ditko, he's so weird. And that's why McGuire is such a good fit for like that energy.

[00:45:19] Not that he's not a good looking guy. No, he's very good looking, but he does have a very odd face. Yeah, he's a, And he's got an odd voice on him. And he's small. Yeah. He's not traditionally handsome. He's not a leading man. He has that voice.

[00:45:31] He really has the Ditko, Spider-Man, Peter energy. I mean, it's all these things that are so fascinating about this. Like, so credit where credit is due. A recent trend that I'm very much in favor of, I think in terms of like iTunes extras, when they have like,

[00:45:48] I'm listening. Yes, keep going. I feel like all the studios behind me, especially for the bigger movies, but I feel like they're working their way down are now starting to like add on every feature that was ever included on any version of any release of a movie.

[00:46:03] So I was like going through the iTunes extras. I think I might know where you're going with this, but go ahead. Okay, the first Spider-Man and they have like everything from every version, more than I even feel like is on the 4K disc now or everything like preserved.

[00:46:14] Yeah. And it's very interesting to watch not just all the marketing materials and whatever, but there's like 90 plus minutes split into different featurettes on that DVD. The two disc Spider-Man one set, that is like, we need to give people context for this comic

[00:46:33] where it's like, they still need to like pump up the idea of like, can you believe this characters existed for all this time? All this sort of shit. All these interviews with like Ramida and Stan. Right, all the old guys.

[00:46:45] Right, and Stan Lee's always like giving his lessons on like what I learned made Spider-Man interesting is you always have to tell a good story. And you're like- The formula Stan? And he's like, the way we came up with the name Doc Ock was interesting. He's my favorite.

[00:47:01] I liked him because I like nicknames. And I said, what if I had a character named Dr. Otto Octavius? And that's what he was named at first. And then I started calling him Dr. Octopus and then I called him Doc Ock. And that's why he's my favorite.

[00:47:17] That was not what I thought you were going to say. What's the one you- Well, because we were talking about how kind of interesting and quirky Tobey Maguire- The screen test? The screen test. This is what I was building up to. Because this is a whole thing.

[00:47:28] Like he resisted this. He didn't want to do a screen test. He's an established actor. The arc of this is, right? And I've gotten this a little wrong when I've talked about it on other episodes, but Raimi really wanted the meeting.

[00:47:39] His agent was like, there's 16 guys on the list ahead of me. I can give you the exact quote, but yes, Raimi was like, I want the, you know, to- To be the 17th guy. And he's like, fine, make me the 17th guy.

[00:47:52] We'll double back around the development stuff, but I just want to set up this specific Tobey thing, right? But he gets in there with the meeting with Raimi. Raimi gets in there and meet him with Columbia and just has that level of enthusiasm

[00:48:03] where like, they're just like, Jesus Christ, this guy cares about this shit. Kirsten Dunst says in an interview that they reuse across like 18 different featurettes I watched last night, like, truly when you talk to Sam about Spider-Man, his eyes start glowing. Sure, I mean, that's, it makes sense.

[00:48:20] It's infectious how much he actually cares about it. And he always tells the story that when he was a little boy, his parents hired a local artist and they paid him $30 to do a painting of Spider-Man. He hung it above his bed

[00:48:31] and he slept in bed every night as a child underneath like a gift painting of Spider-Man. And Avi Arad is like, that is the exact man you need making a movie. But what I've gotten wrong in previous episodes when I'm talking about this is that Raimi didn't,

[00:48:48] I said that Raimi didn't know that he had been hired until he saw it in Variety. What was the case was, he went in for the meeting, thought nothing will come of it. Sure. And then there was a Variety story that said in an unlikely turn of events,

[00:49:00] Sam Raimi appears to be the top choice. Right. Which was the thing he was flabbergasted by because he just thought, I'll get to tell people I pitched for Spider-Man. And the person who was most widely assumed to do it at that point was Fincher. Yeah.

[00:49:13] Everyone was kind of assuming- He was a Sony guy. Right. And people, I think we're still in the mindset of- You need a Bryan Singer. You need a guy who has bona fides making adult movies that are good. You gotta do probably what Cameron was gonna do.

[00:49:25] This movie has to be really shiny and high tech and whatever, you know? But once Raimi's hired to do this and it becomes the casting question, all the articles are derisively like, they wanna hire some lantern-jawed, broad-shouldered hunk like Wes Bentley. Freddie Prinze Jr. Keith Ledger.

[00:49:45] There's an article that mentions Keith Ledger derisively. One of these pretty boys who can act a little. Right, it's like 10 things and maybe a knight's tale. Right. And Raimi's story is that he was watching Spider-House. Jude Law. The Spider-House rules. He was watching the Spider-House rules.

[00:50:03] In hindsight, it really did make him the perfect choice in hindsight. Like Franco was a guy who tested, like Sony wanted all the coolest, prettiest young men. Yeah, of course. He's watching Spider-House rules with his wife in bed and he's like, that's what it should be.

[00:50:17] It should be this. And he goes to Sony and Sony's thing is, but is he an action star? And it's such a funny calculation now where you're just like, he's in the costume the whole movie. Right, who cares? You can't even see his face.

[00:50:30] You literally can't see his face. You just gotta stomp into it. It doesn't matter. All you need to do is hire someone to be Peter Parker. That's the only thing you need to hire someone to do. Of course hire Tobey Maguire. So it's like, get over yourself.

[00:50:40] You cast Michael Keaton. It's like, you've done this before where you cast people who are not like buff guys. Of course, Reeve was like a lanky, he's so popular star, he's a tough top. He's tall and he's very handsome, but they were talking, he was like a twig

[00:50:53] when he went in there. Yeah, he got all buff. Screen test, right. But it's, right, nowadays they'll be like, look, we have to cast the personality outside of the suit and then in the suit, this fucking, smoking mirrors. We figure out, who gives a shit?

[00:51:03] It's an action figure. You move them around on green screen. But they were like so adamant about like, it can't be Tobey and Ramey's pushing so hard. He convinces Tobey to want to do it when I think he had been sort of a Tobey was resistant.

[00:51:16] To that type of movie. Then Tobey gets on board and then Ramey's like, I'm happy I convinced you. Now, by the way, Sony doesn't want to hire you. We have to convince them together. We have to do like an action screen test, right?

[00:51:25] Like it's not just a regular. Two. First they made him take meetings. Right. Then they made him do just an actor screen test. And Sony was like, we still think he's not tough enough. Right. So it's the thing with Eliza Dushku. People should pause the podcast and go,

[00:51:40] just from that description, go watch what they made him do to prove he was tough. This is what's crazy is like, it's like a Bruce Lee screen test. It's so darkly lit. It looks like Dark City. It looks like Burton Batman. Stripped to the waist. Right.

[00:51:54] So they put him in- Oh, he's shirtless. He's shirtless. They put him in a blue spandex body suit to see how he looked in the suit. And he, and I think what was a smart move on his part, very savvy. Oh yeah, I have seen this.

[00:52:03] Was like, I'm so ripped. Let me just like fucking roll this down and show- This looks like fucking Dogviller. It's just like a door and a lamp. So it's these guys who are like holding Eliza Dushku up at knife point.

[00:52:15] Yeah, it's vaguely the scene with like in the alley where he stops the muggers who are attacking MJ. That's vaguely what it's like. It's like got like fucking RoboCop- What's the Dushku connection? Like, does he know her? She was friends with him.

[00:52:26] She says she was friends with him. Yeah. But it's got more like RoboCop, like woman at knife point energy than what happens. And the stunt guys were playing the thugs worse. They say fuck like seven times. They should have kept that. Right, and Toby's like breaking bones.

[00:52:44] He like, he does the sort of- He's doing Bruce Lee. He looks like Bruce Lee. But he's like, and he's, I don't know, he's like oiled up. He's very oiled up. He's very, are you looking at it right now? And like, you know, his frame is skinny.

[00:52:56] He's skinny, but he is buff. He's buff. He's ripped. And right, and the way they- But it's just a very, the energy of it is so weird. Especially since like, this is not Spider-Man at all. He's not really like a martial artist.

[00:53:08] No, this is exactly what you expected at this time to see when you're like, you're making Spider-Man when you watch the channel and go, I guess they had to make Spider-Man like a sort of tough guy vigilante martial artist. And you watch this screen test

[00:53:21] and you cannot believe that they showed this to Sony, that Sony went, okay, you're right. Toby's tough enough to play Spider-Man. It worked. And then he went, great, Toby, go back to playing puppy dog. Never do this ever again. We're not lighting the movie like this.

[00:53:32] It will never have this menace. And the score to this screen test is so like. So that was just a hoodwink, Sony. Yeah, that's funny. Let me give you some context on this movie. We will rush through this because I feel like it's widely discussed anyway.

[00:53:54] Canon Films has the rights. They buy them in 1985 for $225,000, which could not get you a one bedroom apartment in New York City. Absolutely. Cause Marvel is so hard up, I guess. The only thing that they've ever done with Spider-Man is the cartoon, the Toey.

[00:54:09] Well, they had a live action. There was a live action show on. Which is a spin, which is right. Yeah, right. For like a season, maybe two seasons. And is that the classic, you tilt the camera and he's climbing up the side of the building?

[00:54:21] That's the one where you might've seen, like he has like big weird. Yes, it's very creepy looking. And like they did a lot of just like B roll of like they put an actor in the suit and had him stand on top of buildings

[00:54:31] and they would just like fly around with a helicopter. And that was like, they used that shot like 100 times. Was it the pilot for that was released in Europe? They released a bunch of, there's like two or three that they released theatrically like overseas. Are they good?

[00:54:45] It's the guy who plays the director in Once Upon a Time. He's not bad. Like as Peter Parker, he's not bad. He's a little older, you know, like he's, it's more of like a workplace drama. Cause he's just like a guy at the Daily Bugle.

[00:54:59] He's not really, you know, he's not, he doesn't read like a kid like Tobey Maguire. But it's. So Canon basically goes under after Superman 4's release. It's Superman 4 and Masters of the Universe are the two things in 87, the tank. Kill them. They of course famously renamed themselves Pathé

[00:55:15] in a weird attempt to buy Pathé. They'd be like, well, what if we have the same name as you? Doesn't work, shockingly. It's like how in high school I tried to change my name to Griffin Alba in the hopes that just Alba would be like,

[00:55:28] I guess we're married and he took my name. Exactly. They are sucked into MGM. The rights become absolutely a legal mess. Like, right at a certain point, I guess Carolco gets in charge of it. Cause that's where James Cameron comes aboard. Yes. Well, James Cameron basically.

[00:55:47] So I was looking at this last night. He has a book that came out a couple of months ago. You interviewed him. And I, oh, I, I went, I did. I basically, they were like, so James Cameron does this book.

[00:55:58] It's a really nice book of his like concept art. Right. And it's actually the same publisher that published my Spider-Man book. And they emailed, sometimes they ask me if I want to cover their stuff and whatever. And they're like,

[00:56:09] do you want to come do a round table interview with James Cameron? And I was like, I never do round table interviews for anything and I will absolutely go. And you had spoken to him before, right? Never. No, okay. But you were in that documentary, the sci-fi series.

[00:56:23] Oh yes, yes. I'm in James Cameron's story of science fiction quite a lot. Okay. Yeah, I've met him, never spoken. He wasn't behind the, on the other side of the camera. I mean, he's on camera. I have no idea what he was in that parking. Yeah.

[00:56:35] Matt, do it again. Come on, Matt. Get futuristic enough. Put on the dots and jump in those water. We're doing this mocap. You can hold your breath for 14 minutes, right? But in the book, the last two pages of the book are his artwork for Spider-Man that he created.

[00:56:49] And then he talks about what he wanted to do with the movie. So I'm like, oh, I'm going, and I'm just going to ask him about Spider-Man. Yeah. Because it is such an interesting period. Post Terminator 2 is when he really picks up the baton. Right, right.

[00:57:02] It's like I can do anything. Actually, it might even be a little before that. I guess it's post Terminator 2 that he has the clout to demand like, this will be my next project. Weren't they going to do Spider-Man and action? But he's the one who basically,

[00:57:12] when canon goes under, he's the one who's like, well, I've always wanted, he's kind of like Sam Raimi. He's always loved Spider-Man. He wants to do it. He tried, and he's trying for years to try to get someone to get the rights.

[00:57:23] Cause they're saying like, it's weird, murky thing. It's all fucked up because like, someone owns the TV rights, someone owns the movie rights, Viacom is involved or whatever. And it's because of all these like. So he tries to get,

[00:57:34] he's trying to get people to get the rights for him. Somebody does at one point, but then they go under, I guess Kuroko does, but then they have problems. He works on it for a little while. And then what happens is eventually

[00:57:47] Sony gets their hands on some of it, or they claim they do. And he tries to get Fox to buy it. Basically take them on. This is so insane. The light storm set up. In 1997, the film rights for Spider-Man

[00:58:03] were awarded to MGM in the wake of Kuroko's bankruptcy as part of a legal dispute over the fate of Cutthroat Island. So it's some weird like judges like, I guess the Spider-Man rights can go over here. Like he's like dividing up some pie after.

[00:58:19] And then Fox comes in, James Cameron using them as a stalking horse. Right, and he's got like a 10 year deal. Right, and he's like, get me the Spider-Man rights. But a Los Angeles court reversed the decision I just described and said that MGM rights were worthless

[00:58:34] because they had not made a Spider-Man movie. Like they were required, I think, to make one within 10 years of buying the rights. And they never have. Right. So they never did like the Fantastic Four thing. They never made the Ghost movie. And so Sony is given the rights

[00:58:49] along with the home video rights and the television rights in a very complicated legal maneuver that like pays off Viacom or whatever. And so now in 1999, Sony has all of Spider-Man to itself and they will never let it go. No, obviously. JJ didn't pull this up

[00:59:06] so I don't have the specifics to cite. So I'm gonna tell this story broadly. But there was a thing where once Sony had the rights and they were actively developing the Spider-Man movie and Marvel was still fairly hard up for cash.

[00:59:19] This is the late nineties, they're in terrible shape. Right, that's the other part of this that people today would not believe. Marvel almost didn't exist. Yeah, they were totally fucked. They shrank their titles. I remember like they had almost no comics anymore.

[00:59:31] There is this infamous moment where someone at Marvel, be it a Rod or whoever says like, if you're really bullish on making the Spider-Man movie for like another $20 million we'll throw in every other character. Right, right, right. And Sony, like they send it to some fucking executive

[00:59:46] and he goes like, not worth it. Yeah, Iron Man cares. The whole. That's when then everything starts to get. Except maybe not X-Men, right? Cause X-Men was their golden goose in the late nineties. I guess X-Men was the one that had been set up already. Right, right, right.

[00:59:59] But yeah. There was a point where Cameron was also considering doing X-Men. He was approached originally to do X-Men. And he was like, X-Men is fine. I love Spider-Man. And so that was the thing. And he like, suppose it,

[01:00:11] I mean like that's what he talks about in that book and what I asked him about. Indeed in our research, an interview with Matt Singer. He calls it the greatest movie he never made. Yeah, he never made. And that he tried to get Fox to basically like go,

[01:00:25] I don't want to say go to war, but like fight for the rights. Cause he thought that Sony's legal argument was tenuous and he thought they could get it and they decided it wasn't worth it financially. Right, they possibly could have.

[01:00:36] They could have gotten it and probably won. It would have cost them money. And that was, I mean, he says, he says, you know, he says, you know, he says, you know, he says, you know, he says, he says, that's what he said. That is actually the quote.

[01:00:49] This is the quote he told me like in the interview. He said, Peter Churnin, the former president of Fox wouldn't go to bat for the rights. He didn't want to get into a legal fight. I'm like, are you kidding? This thing could be worth,

[01:00:58] I don't know, a billion dollars. Yeah. Today, $10 billion later. Per movie, exactly. Right, right. But so James Cameron's treatment, which is like a 60 page script. It's a script. So it's, yeah. He's like, I just, I didn't want to commit fully to writing a script,

[01:01:14] but I kind of did. He, you know, he's obviously the one who makes the, the web shooters organic. His biggest lasting contribution. Which, look, I don't know if that's a controversial thing to say. And I don't know if it's just partially generational, right?

[01:01:29] That this movie came at the right time for me. I'm reading Ultimates where they, does Ultimates do organic or not? It does, I believe, right? The ultimate Spider-Man. Or Amazing at some point makes them organic. No, no, I think the Bendis. I don't know about Ultimate. Amazing,

[01:01:41] it becomes canonical after the movie for a while. Then they take it away. Didn't he turn into a spider at one point? He sure did. That was, I didn't like that. That was wild. Yeah, I was, I was anti-that. This is an obvious question, but okay.

[01:01:54] But what are we talking about? What the fuck? In the comic? Yeah. I think this is, look, I've always liked the organic web shooter thing. And I think Cameron's point here is really smart. It was a thing that people griped about at the time, but in the comics,

[01:02:07] it was like when he gets bit by the spider, what does he gain? In Ultimate, he does not do it organic. Okay. Yeah, I didn't, yeah. But it was in Amazing. Too radical. In main content, okay. At that time. In the comics, he gets the strength, right?

[01:02:21] He gets the spider sense. Speed, he can stick to walls. He can climb walls. He can climb walls. He gets the spider sense. And then he's like, you know what I should have? Webs. And then because he's a science nerd, he goes and makes a web formula

[01:02:31] and he comes up with bracelets he wears and they have cartridges with web formula and he shoots them. I remember this from the animated show. Right, that's the classic Spider-Man thing. And like in the later movies, like in the Tom Holland movies, he has it too.

[01:02:41] Like that's what they've come back to. But James Cameron both had this whole like body horror. He's a teenager. It makes sense that he'd have this weird, you know, it's, you know, there's a lot of metaphors you can lay on. A little pubescent.

[01:02:53] But his other point, which is very good, is like, yeah, exactly. He does become less of an everyman when he's that level of genius. This is the whole thing. He'd be a very smart kid. I think that he's just like,

[01:03:03] no one's gonna buy that this kid fucking invented this insane thing. The most incredible. That would be like DARPA level. Right. And it's like, I agree with that. Like at the time, again, I was like, again, whatever you can do to get this in a theater.

[01:03:16] I don't care. And I also am not one of those people who's like, yes, Tom Holland made it, invented it. Good, good. Yeah, like I win. Like I don't care. Who cares? Who cares? But also I like the stupid cartridges. They're fun. They're fun.

[01:03:31] But it is funny to think about how like Spider-Man's defining power is really he swings and he shoots webs and it's like that has nothing to do with the spider bite. It has pluses. To me, it's like each one has pluses and minuses.

[01:03:44] I think James Cameron's point is very valid. And it makes, it does make sense. It's just in like the comics, it's a lot more fun when he's, cause he has to make, he's gotta buy the web. He's gotta buy the ingredients. And so he's always scrounging for money.

[01:03:58] That's what I liked about it. That's the part about the web shooters that's fun. Is that he can't afford to like make this stuff. But yeah, it is pretty absurd that a kid, if you could create those web shooters, you would be a billionaire. Yeah, exactly.

[01:04:12] But Cameron wanted to make a Spider-Man movie that probably would have had a similar tone to like true lies and Terminator 2. Like he wanted to make something shiny and sexy and darker. There was not gonna be a costumed villain. He said in a statement I don't understand.

[01:04:26] I think he said this to you that he morphed Kingpin and Elektra into one guy as the villain. Don't really know what that is. But I guess some kind of like gangster ninja villain. Doc Ock was part of it at some point.

[01:04:39] Doc Ock was part of many scripts. Many of the scripts have these, but Cameron just said- Cameron supposedly doesn't like the villains. I don't like the villains. He likes Venom and he doesn't like any of the other villains. Which I guess you can kinda see.

[01:04:51] A fucking amazing villain. Yeah, Kingpin's great. Cause here's his deal. And Matt, I'm gonna tell you. Okay, please tell me. What's his name? Kingpin. All right, I'm taking these notes, go ahead. Here's his deal. Mr. Ben, spider splains. Big as fucking hell. He is large, tall and wide.

[01:05:09] It's like a square. Yeah. How does that work? I mean, you just gotta see it to believe it. It is funny how in Spider-Man, like when Kingpin's introduced before he becomes the daredevil villain. Spider-Man just makes fun of how fat he is all the time.

[01:05:24] Like it gets a little repetitive in those 70s comics. Anyway, another interesting point, of course, James Cameron not getting Spider-Man is when he's just like, you know what? I'm gonna do my own thing. No more IP for me. I'm going to Pandora, baby.

[01:05:39] Like it's gotta be from the brain of James Cameron cause I don't wanna deal with this shit anymore. Okay, David Fincher, Chris Columbus, Ron Howard. They're names that make sense for that era. Absolutely. Guys who can handle a big project. They want this movie to be big.

[01:05:54] Hire people who have made big movies that please everyone. So they are the biggest names mentioned, but yeah. Sam Raimi, like you said. He said, put me down for number 17 and he surges to the top of the list because he's so passionate.

[01:06:08] And Fincher had done Fight Club with Ziskin, Laura Ziskin and Ziskin was the main producer on this. And so people assumed, look, he's so technologically adept. This movie is going to have to break a lot of ground and effects. He's also hip and cool and she likes him.

[01:06:24] He's probably the guy who's gonna get hired to do this. And then Raimi sees that story that says out of nowhere, Raimi has swung into the top of the list and he's like, holy shit, I have. And then they offer him the fucking job.

[01:06:35] The craziest part of this is the thing where he was about to go on the gift. Yes. And Sony was like, we will pay Paramount to delay the gift. Like he can shoot it and then- They delayed post production. Exactly.

[01:06:51] As long as he goes straight from shooting the gift into Spider-Man and then he does post on both movies at the same time, we'll pay you like a million dollars to delay the editing of the gift for like nine months. So David Koepp is the screenwriter,

[01:07:06] but of course he is- The credited screenwriter. The credited screenwriter. There are many, many drafts. He's the Sony screenwriter before any director comes on. Yes, he worked off of Cameron's draft. Apparently Cameron, I gotta get this right, Scott Rosenberg, Alvin Sargent all had genuine,

[01:07:24] you know, like rights to a credit. And they all voluntarily withdrew for whatever reason. Probably because they were given money, is my assumption, by the Sony Columbia Picture Corporation. But you know, so they were all like, whatever. And Koepp is the credited-

[01:07:40] Sargent, of course, longtime partners with Boris Iskin. And then he gets the writing credits on two and three. And I think- Yeah, he worked on them. He kept working on them. He's like an old guy at this point, right? And all the rainy commentary.

[01:07:50] He's like an old hand, right? Alvin Sargent? He's still alive. Oh, no, no, he did die. I think he died a year ago. What were you saying? I was saying when he's writing these movies, like he's, yeah, he was born in 1927. Like he's an older- He's 87, yes.

[01:08:01] Yeah, he's older. Right, and Alvin Sargent, for reference, is like Paper Moon and Ordinary People. Paper Moon, not Taken by the Wind. Yeah. But yeah, Paper Moon, right. Right, he's like not David Koepp. No, not a genre guy, right. I have always viewed him as the secret sauce

[01:08:16] to these movies in a lot of ways. The throwback- Ramey gives him a lot of credit on the commentary for this movie. Yeah. Even though he's not credited on this movie, he's like, in scene after scene, he'll be like, Alvin Sargent did some wonderful writing for this scene.

[01:08:30] A lot of the stuff with Peter and Mary Jane. That makes sense. He gives, it makes total sense. It feels so old Hollywood. The tone and the characterization. And just how broad it is. Yes. And not, sincere, I guess is the word, right?

[01:08:46] You know, like, and not afraid of being sincere. I mean, we'll talk about it, but the monologue Peter does to Mary Jane in the hospital. Oh, at the hospital. Where he's talking about- You mean the thing you told Spider-Man? The thing that, of course,

[01:08:59] he told Spider-Man when talking to Spider-Man. Which by the way, that was a scene I remember seeing in the theater opening weekend where the audience started laughing and they were like, this is too much. You have not pushed it one step too far.

[01:09:07] And I watch it now and I'm like, this is the most endearing thing. Because now, like, Kevin Feige would shoot a bazooka at this scene. He'd be like, get it off of the screen! Like, and you know, too sincere! Not to get ahead of ourselves,

[01:09:18] but the scene I want to pin that is the one where I watch it and I go, this would just never happen today. And if it did, it would not have this tone. It would not have this breathing room. Which! Macy Gray performing live.

[01:09:28] Just wouldn't have the tone! Which was a sergeant note, I heard. He was like, Macy Gray should be at Unity Parade! Peter, Mary, Jane, backyard conversation. Yeah, sure, right. Like where she's like, I want to be an actress at that scene. We're gonna talk about that for 45 minutes.

[01:09:44] We'll get back to it. The original script, we're not gonna talk about it for 45 minutes. 30 minutes. I have a hard time. Electro Sandman, Dr. Octopus, and Green Goblin are all in the original cap script. Too many. So they sort of slowly sand them out,

[01:09:58] but it was gonna be Green Goblin and Doc Ock? For a long time. And then they finally were like, you know what, we can't have a Doc Ock and a Green Goblin origin story. This movie is a tight 121 minutes. Yeah.

[01:10:09] Now I guess it would be different probably, right? I don't know, but yeah. Almost certainly. There was a thing, I mean, it's stupid, right? But I was digging into all the merch for this movie and there was an odd item I remember,

[01:10:22] early 2000s push to revolutionize trading cards where trading cards were CD-ROMs. Sure, this sounds like a Griffin thing. Absolutely, Griffin thing. But there was a set I remember from In Planet Selling that was like the Spider-Man CD-ROM trading cards where it's like each card has movie clips

[01:10:38] and bios and whatever, right? And so it was a pack of the four characters and it was Spider-Man, Mary Jane, Green Goblin, and the fourth one is just Harry Osborn sitting at a desk. We love it. It is funny to think about that being like,

[01:10:51] who's our fourth most merchandisable character? It's also wild that they take three movies to do him. Yeah. That he's just hanging out in these two movies. Right, that he's just hanging out for three movies. Like the patience. Maybe too much patience sometimes from Raymond, right?

[01:11:04] I think it's only that they just fuck up three. I think they do a good job with him in two. I do too, I love it, to be clear. I mean, the end of, with him in this one, the ending is so perfect.

[01:11:13] I mean, it's like one of the, just the perfect Spider-Man. I mean, the last like 15, 20 minutes of this movie in general is just so Spider-Man-y. It is, it is. It's amazing, but like, yeah, the stuff with- Amazing? The stuff with- Spectacular? Yeah, sensational! Friendly neighborhood? Sorry. Web of?

[01:11:29] Exactly! But yeah, the stuff with Harry at the end where he, you know, he, thank God for you, Peter, but he also, you know, despises Spider-Man now. It's just so deliciously, you know, that is the real juice of Spider-Man there. It's so great.

[01:11:45] It's the same, I mean, my favorite thing about Spider-Man is that he makes his money taking pictures of Spider-Man that his boss will then use to harass Spider-Man and there's nothing he can do about it. Like you sit down and you're like,

[01:11:56] well, why doesn't he just go to it? And it's like, no, you don't understand. That is part of the existential thing. Well, the whole existential concept of Spider-Man is just that- He works hard, nobody likes him, you know? One, every victory, which again,

[01:12:08] like the end of this movie is so perfect for, it's like every victory as- Insane that the end of this movie was allowed. Yes. And I remember when I was a teen, people being like, why doesn't he get to kiss Mary Jane at the end? Yeah, right.

[01:12:21] He like pushes away. Yeah, and he's like, bye, I'm Spider-Man. It's like, roll credits, get out of here. He just mopes away in a long coat from a funeral of his friend's dad. But just the fact that every victory as Spider-Man ruins Peter Parker's life and vice versa.

[01:12:37] Like that is, and the Daily Bugle thing is part of that. But just like every element of his life is encompassed with the other. And one thing can't go right without 10 things going wrong. 100%, he's unlucky. That's the perfect- In all those featurets I watched,

[01:12:50] it was the one thing that I thought Stan Lee said to his credit where he actually showed some insight as to like what makes Spider-Man work. Cause he always would just be like, the key is to have good character.

[01:12:59] You gotta come up with a clever idea for a power. Right, but then he said, he said, the thing for me with Spider-Man was always, there's a bad guy at this part of town and Aunt May's really sick and her medication's on the other part of town.

[01:13:12] That is, and every single one of those, the whole thing with those Stan Lee interviews is, I do think if people, not maybe when he was really old, people ground him down, he would finally be like, yeah, you know, maybe Steve Ditko did deserve more credit

[01:13:23] and I did give it to him. But like, you have to get through an hour of him being like, my idea was a teenager would be a superhero. You know, like his whole glitzy, you know, razzle dazzle. To his credit in one of the things I watched,

[01:13:35] which was shot in 2002, he was like, they call me the creator of Spider-Man, but the reason I really truly believe I'm the co-creator is because I only had a thing on a paper. I never could have come up with this design. Right, he did eventually relinquish.

[01:13:48] He became more a magnet. Once he was very old. Over time. Yeah, right. It was not always that way. But yes, no, that's the stuff that just like spiritually, Sam Raimi understands exactly what a Spider-Man movie needs to be. And I remember walking out with my friends

[01:14:03] and then being like, so did you love that? Was that like your favorite movie of all time? And I was like, I like it a lot. I'm surprised by how much it feels like a comic book. And I wasn't saying it as a complaint,

[01:14:14] I was just genuinely thrown off by it. It was miraculous. It was like they pulled it off. Right. That for years the conventional wisdom was you could not do this. You had to do it a different, you had to make it look less like this.

[01:14:28] You had to make it feel less like this. And then that was part one. Part two was then it made more money in one weekend than any movie had ever made. And so suddenly it wasn't just like, oh, well I think it's great. And they pulled it off.

[01:14:40] It's like, oh, everyone thinks it's great. The monoculture is in. Yes, and they're ready for this and they accept it and they like it. And that was the other thing that really changed everything. It was the biggest movie since Titanic. Yeah.

[01:14:51] And it just, yeah, it worked on every. It worked, and it would work for families. I do think that was so crucial to it, right? It's not just the teenagers and young men wanted to see it, which is like the classic.

[01:15:00] It was like, you could take your kids to see this movie and it's not that intense. It's a little intense, you know. No, I was like Raimi, I don't know if it was a panel or press conference or whatever when they were promoting the movie.

[01:15:11] And he just kept on saying, like, he's just so, Raimi's so sincere in how he talks about these things, but he's like, you know, my goal was to make a motion picture that is really, really thrilling for the whole family. You sit there with your popcorn

[01:15:24] and you cannot believe the things that are on the screen, but there is enough focus on the interior lives of these characters that adults will still be held into the story. And it's like, oh great, it is that simple.

[01:15:36] It's just like, I'm gonna put crazy shit on screen. You know, and he talks about for how stylized and heightened this movie feels now. He was like, I don't wanna do Burt in Gotham City. I don't wanna do this like super design thing.

[01:15:46] Right, but a thing that is so smart is he was like, I want it to be real New York. I wanna shoot in real New York, real locations because that was a superpower of the comics that it was like-

[01:15:56] And this is the first movie that does that, right? Absolutely. Like this is the beginning of New York as like a hot filming location. But he was like, we went out of our way to try to find all the genuine locations in New York that feel magical.

[01:16:09] So rather than recreating things- Yeah, like that rooftop by the church, you know, where he drives Mary Jane off. Uncle Ben's outside the New York Public Library. Of course. Like pick these- Even the Queens neighborhood is so picturesque and great. Like a perfect setting for a Queens neighborhood.

[01:16:25] Uncle Ben drives him from deep Queens to the main branch of the New York City Public Library. Correct. 45 hour long. And then he's like, and it's like fucking 1 p.m. Like it's the daytime. And he's like, I'll meet you here at 10 p.m.

[01:16:43] I'm sorry, first he says, hold on a second. He turned some 41 off on the radio. Uncle Ben loves some 41. Most recent some 41 song, Peter. And then, yes. And then he says, I'll pick you up in 12 hours. What is the lie here?

[01:16:58] Beautiful, he's like, I really gotta hit the books so hard. Yeah. I mean, he is a nerd. He is a science nerd. No, but sure. But the main branch, it's like, he's gotta be hitting the micro fees. Yeah, exactly. He can't go to his local library.

[01:17:12] I mean, I'm just saying, Uncle Ben, he's a mensch. He is just like, sure. I'll just fuck around in Manhattan for 10 hours. He's got Sam Raimi's car. I mean, what are you gonna do with that car other than drive it around? Come on.

[01:17:24] You know what's a funny thing in this movie that like hasn't aged poorly, but is just like very of its moment and the moment changes maybe right after this. There's the line, it's in that, the taking out the trash scene where they're talking about Peter and Mary Jane,

[01:17:37] what they wanna do with their lives. And he's like, I don't know, move to the city. And that idea of like being from Queens and being able to work your way up to Manhattan is like- Get an apartment downtown.

[01:17:48] Whereas I feel now when I tell people I live in Manhattan, they're like, why the fuck would you? What's the matter with you? Right. Which is a fair question. Right, that you're like, if you live in Queens, you don't really live in New York. The city. The city.

[01:18:00] You have to live in the city. It's very Saturday night fever, you know that idea that, you know, Manhattan. It's truly like 2002 is like the last month before everyone starts to go- Yes, no, that's true. You're right about that. Right, that is actually true. But everything about this,

[01:18:12] it's like Cliff Robertson and Mary Mary Harris, obviously it's trite to now note that yes, every iteration of Spider-Man, you know, for the next iteration, they will be teenagers, I assume, like Ben and- Right, yes. May. But, you know, he feels like he, what is he?

[01:18:28] He's an electrician, right? Oh, I love that detail about him. He just got fired. He just got fired from his job as the chief electrician at the plant and now he's screwing in light bulbs in their kitchen. Like what a nice little detail. Even the computers have analysts.

[01:18:43] Right, it feels so throwbacky. It's like a single income, like outer Queens household, right? The interior of that house is amazing. It's so good. So old, you know, uncle and aunt or grandma and grandpa house with that wallpaper. She is great aunt.

[01:19:00] You know Spider-Man lore better than me. Like how the fuck is- No, he's supposed to be, I mean there's- It makes no sense because in the comics Aunt May is like comically Mr. Burns old, right? Like she's like so decrepit. Decrepit. And like, you're like, how is this?

[01:19:13] Like what's the age gap? She's 45 but she's got city miles. She's got a lot of city miles. Yeah. But like, you know, obviously they zazz him up but I do love, I kind of forgot how much I love Cliff Robertson in this movie. He's pretty so good.

[01:19:30] He's fantastic in this. And it is funny that they talk about like- Obviously Rosemary Harris somewhere, I remember cause she's in the sequels and she's doing her thing. Like Defoe is the only guy who actively pursues involvement in this movie from the cast.

[01:19:43] It sounds like everyone else had to be talked into it to some degree by Raimi being like, here's my take on real vision. I know it sounds like bullshit but- I'm gonna invest in the characters. I know it sounds like bullshit.

[01:19:52] And Defoe was like, it's fun to do a cartoon movie. Yeah, Malkovich was the first choice. And he go, I look like a goblin. Well, I feel like the whole thing with Defoe is just like, we're making a comic book movie. Who should play the villain?

[01:20:05] Willem Dafoe, right? Like he was just always going to be one of the first off the board. But he always talks about, he's like, I like sought it out. They, I was not on there. I think- Malkovich was their first choice. They really wanted-

[01:20:18] It wasn't Cage before Malkovich? I don't see anything about Cage. Cage, I believe Cage was the first choice. Well, that's crazy. He did adaptation instead. But it was just because Cage was known for being such a big comic book fan. He just turned it down.

[01:20:31] And had almost done Superman. But they really tried to get- That they were like, you can get an A-list star to play this. And he just said, I'm doing adaptation. Yeah. Malkovich got far along. Defoe, yeah, he was into it.

[01:20:43] And he was very into how sincere Sam Raimi was. I don't know, Defoe's just a guy who does anything, right? I mean, not in a bad way. Experimental theater, he was like, this is a fun opportunity to do this much physical performance.

[01:20:53] He did most of his own stunts. He was like, I want to be the guy in the suit the whole time so I have a continuity performance. I want to learn how to do all this shit. Should've painted his ass green, man. He looks like a goblin.

[01:21:05] I like William Defoe, he's a hot guy. But he looks like a fucking goblin. You mean like, Joe has a prosthetic chin on his ass. Just a slight lengthening. Paint him with green and just let him laugh. It is insane that they cover up his face.

[01:21:17] It's so crazy. I understand. In profile, he has that great nose where he does kind of look like the helmet that they give him. It does kind of seem like a exaggerated version of him. You're absolutely right. I mean, I feel like,

[01:21:29] I remember at the time pre-seeing the movie, that was the most controversial thing people liked. The green goblin looks lame. What is this they're doing? Power Ranger, that was the thing everyone always said. Right, obviously, the green goblin. Does kind of look like a Power Ranger.

[01:21:42] The green goblin in the comics is, I mean, what they eventually did in No Way Home where they just have Willem Dafoe in a hoodie. Like, I get that. That's a good homage. But the thing in the comics makes no sense. He pulls off like a rubber mask.

[01:21:55] Yeah, this is the whole thing. And you're always like, how are his limbs green? Like, I don't get how this costume is supposed to work. The whole thing they talked about, because there's that amazing, you can see on YouTube, the Studio ADI test

[01:22:03] where they did an animatronic mask. Uh-huh, right, yeah. That looked like a goblin face. And it actually looked very cool. But Raimi was like, the logic of it always just befuddled me where it was like, he's a guy. He puts a rubber mask on.

[01:22:16] And then when he puts the mask on, the mask has full expressions. Right, it just looks like a cartoon face. It's like Jim Carrey, the mask, where it's like glued to his face. This is the... Yes. Yeah, I mean, it looks incredible. It does.

[01:22:27] It looks very fucking cool. But you also go, but you're right, the logic of it is... Why would he look like this? Right, right. The thing with green goblin doesn't make a lot of sense. No. My big issue with the green goblin getup in this movie

[01:22:40] is actually not even how it looks, but the sound where they don't, like he doesn't... All of his lines are like 80 yards. Yeah. Six lines later. It doesn't match totally. And it doesn't match the visual and his movements.

[01:22:52] And he doesn't sound like he's wearing a mask at all. Like Spider-Man, Tobey Maguire, when he's talking. Yes, they do a good job with that. It sounds like he's talking through a mask. They do the weird thing where you can see his eyes.

[01:23:02] He'll like pop open the eyes. Or the mouth, sometimes you can see through the mask. Right, where I feel like they're trying to get the phone. Yeah, there's like a mesh over the mouth. Involved. Right. But then you're just, when you're looking at him,

[01:23:10] you're just like, he looks crazy. Like why does he... They don't totally solve it. And it's very telling that in No Way Home, they were like, all right, let's smash the head. Right, right. Like one scene with the head. The person I was watching with was just like,

[01:23:23] when you're on the rooftop scene, which I like as a scene of itself, but she's like, anytime it's the two of them talking in full costume, you're losing something because this could just be fucking anybody. Yeah. You know, whether or not you're told

[01:23:34] it is them actually in there, it does start to feel like the footage that they inherent on Power Rangers that Saban then tries to dub over, where you're like, this is disconnected from the main actors. It's one of the smart things with Spider-Man 2

[01:23:49] where he's just like, it's just Alfred Molina at Trenchcoat. Right. And they also start taking Toby's mask off a lot more often in two and three, which people complain about, but you do need to do. Gotta show them guys. Absolutely. Put them. Yeah.

[01:24:05] Yeah, you know, let's just talk about the movie Spider-Man a little bit. Yeah. Should we just take a quick picture before we get into the plot? Do you guys wanna just like all get into a line and then the spider will come down

[01:24:17] from the ceiling and bite us? Oh, right, right, for the school paper. Correct. Yes, right, right, right. I was trying to get us in quickly. Yeah, yeah, so here's the thing with this movie. You know, I made the very intimate confession to the woman I've been dating

[01:24:30] that the universal fanfare gets me really jazzed. There are few things to get me more excited about the world and the graphics of the globe and whatever, right? Right. So we're watching this movie and- And she stayed after you said that. We've had a number of conversations.

[01:24:43] We're working through it. It's a fair question. Any time, she'll throw it back in my face as often as she can, but when we're watching this movie and the Columbia lady comes on, she goes like, oh, does the fucking Columbia lady get you amped too?

[01:24:57] And I'm like, no, I'm not some fucking freak pervert. Yeah, but then the strings. And then David, exactly, I went, I have to admit, the strings do get me. They're really good. They're, it's one of those things where just like when you hear the Danny Elfman Batman theme

[01:25:11] for the first time, you're like, fuck yeah, this is what Batman sounds like. And I remember just because the trailers used other scores and pop songs and shit, having no sense of what the score of this movie was gonna be before sitting down in the theater.

[01:25:24] And when those strings start just immediately feeling goosebumps of like, fuck, this sounds like Spider-Man. He is like musically captured Spider-Man and no one has improved upon it since him. So to me, like I remember again, sitting in the theater the very first time seeing this

[01:25:39] and the moment for me early on when I was like, oh, we're in good shape is when the title credit comes up based on the Marvel comic book by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. They give both of them credit and they're credited in the opening credits,

[01:25:53] which is something that just wasn't done. We're not gonna acknowledge that. They were showing that off with, wow. Right, they were like, right, exactly. It wasn't like something they shoved at the end of the movie or whatever. Front and center based on the Marvel comic book

[01:26:07] by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. I was like, oh, that feels different. Raimi got the job through enthusiasm and somehow he convinced everyone at Sony to be like, fuck it, we're just gonna do this. We're just gonna make a Spider-Man movie. I was not convinced at all

[01:26:21] until I was told the story was not for the faint of heart. Then I was like, well. But David, you were assuming he was an ordinary guy not a care in the world. Exactly, and then I was told that someone had lied to me.

[01:26:32] Someone had lied to her. That's a great scene too, the opening scene. I love the way he's, okay, the voiceover, but the way he's introduced. The bus. Through, right. I didn't take this guy and then he's riding it alongside the bus.

[01:26:44] And the fact that he's introduced as just the hand, he almost looks subterranean. And what's the end of the movie is him soaring through Manhattan. So the sort of. The lows and the highs. Yeah, exactly. Wait, you're telling me that Peter Parker kid

[01:26:57] is the same guy as Spider-Man? Hard to believe, but true. But yeah, so I just love. There's a hyphen between the two. Even that stuff, structurally, is just so smart. Ramy, I think in what the commentary is watching, kept on referring to the caverns of New York City,

[01:27:12] which I thought was such a good term to describe the liminal space between buildings. The building, right. But yes. How much credit does this movie deserve? And I'm asking, I don't know, I think a lot, but all the video games that have come out since then

[01:27:26] that have had Spider-Man swinging, where the game mechanics are basically just about swinging around New York. How much of it has to do with this movie and the shot after he drops Mary Jane on the rooftop, where he swings, runs up the side of the building,

[01:27:39] goes, woo, and swings away? How many games have just been built on that one energy, that one shot? Ramy truly nails the swinging stuff so fucking hard. Which felt hard, it felt like how are they gonna do that? The hardest thing to do.

[01:27:53] How do you nail the CGI? How do you whatever, yeah, yeah. And even just what are the physics of this? What is the inner logic of this, whatever? Because it's one of those things, the comics yada yada. It's like he's swinging, he's mid-swing.

[01:28:04] It's definitely something you could say as great as the comics are, they don't have anything like the actual beauty and physics and grace of movement. Right, a comic can never do that. And that's the one thing where they took the idea of it,

[01:28:18] the energy of it, and you can see the individual moments that look kind of like panels, but they gave it this fluidity and excitement and grace that they just nailed it. There were those, the early 2000s PlayStation N64 games, and then there's the movie tie-in game for this.

[01:28:35] And I remember that being the first one that sort of got the mechanics of the swinging down well. At the time it felt amazing. Right, Spider-Man, the game, the second game was the one that was really mind-blowing because it had the open world. Yes, that was in Manhattan.

[01:28:47] But the first one was good too. It felt like a big-ass deal, but even playing that game, I remember being like, you're just swinging from the sky. Yes. Like you just shoot up and you swing through. That was the whole thing, like where's the fucking web?

[01:29:00] Like, you know, in the comics you're just like, well, you don't think about it. And Rainey cheats a little, but I do think he does a good job, especially that first time he's swinging of like, he has to go to that building

[01:29:11] and then he has to find another anchor point. The time when his feet touch the ground and it's like, there's momentum. He's gonna, he can't stop. It truly is one of those things where like, the infamous teaser trailer for this movie, of course,

[01:29:24] was the sequence that was shot only for the trailer that's like the psych out, 9-11. I rewatched it. It is so funny that they're like bank robbers. And it's like done like a Michael Bay movie. Yeah, it's so silly. Like bulletproof vests. It looks janky too.

[01:29:38] The helicopter where they're like, it won't go! Like he just stops in midair. Not done by Rainey. Right. But then- Obviously famously the James Cameron script had a climax of the World Trade Center, FYI. And he, and that the World Trade Center was like his nest.

[01:29:54] Like he had a permanent web up there that he used to- He says in an interview, like I love Sam Raimi. I hope he takes it out of there. Right. Because whatever, obviously he was gonna take it out of there.

[01:30:02] But I do think putting the glimpses of the swinging in the trailers, but that original teaser in the later trailers was the thing that made this like a fucking, no, but that was the thing. The whole thing was like ultimate spin and look at this fucking footage.

[01:30:13] Look at how cool it looked. It was just incredible. And I think Rainey nailed it so hard that all the other movies have been fucked because they're just like, we don't want to redo exactly what he did. Well. Like Holland doesn't even swing that much.

[01:30:26] Look, I'll say this. If you know the Mark Webb movie, the guy has the last name Webb. You had to hire him. Remember it had the gimmick of the first person photography where you see him like climb up the wall. Yeah. It was like cool for five seconds.

[01:30:40] That was the teaser, but it was only in like one or two shots. It didn't do that much in the movie. I do like in the Holland movies when he swings with MJ and she's flipping out. Cause she's like, this is awful. I do think that's necessary. Agreed.

[01:30:55] But that's like, that's the end of the, the very end of the second. The beginning of the third. The magic of the swinging is a little, I mean look how many of these fucking times, you know. But it is that thing where they're just like,

[01:31:05] Rainey nailed it so hard. And part of it is like classic Rainey ingenuity where he was, you know, on top of the CGI and everything else, it was like, let's get a helicopter. Let's have a metal rope hanging from the helicopter

[01:31:19] and let's have a camera at the end of that. And let's just fly a helicopter. I mean, this is the same Rainey thing. He's like, what can I glue a camera to? Throw into space. You can CGI him swinging, but what's going to make it feel real is

[01:31:32] if the camera is also swinging in between real buildings. Is it crazy to say that this stuff looks better than like the current Marvel swing? I mean, the current Marvel swing looks good. Some of the CGI has aged, but like the visceral quality of this

[01:31:47] has not been replicated or matched. I mean, two, I think it's better because they've learned all their mistakes and it's perfect by two. Two is just like a perfect, they- The acrobatics of two are so cool. Like, whereas this only has a little bit,

[01:32:00] like this has that one, the slow motion where he's sort of, you know, zigging around the razors. I do think so much of it is the camera work though. That's why it still looks better even if you like hold the CGI up and you're like,

[01:32:12] Spider-Man does look a little like silly putty here. You know? Don Burgess. Don Burgess. Well, I mean, how many of them, and I'm not trying to insult John Watts here, but like in general, how many of the Marvel movies do they hire a director?

[01:32:24] In the same way you hire the actor to not be in the suit. Right. How many of them do they hire the director to not worry about the action and they just let the action be like, here you've hired Sam Raimi,

[01:32:33] who is just an incredible visual stylist, innovator. And that's the thing is like you watch the movie and the camera work and the editing is so precise and he knows exactly where to put the camera and when to cut. And it feels, and it all feels cohesive.

[01:32:49] And it doesn't feel like, oh, now here's a random action scene that we storyboarded before we even wrote a script. Nothing like that here. You feel the fingerprints on literally every single inch of this movie. And I do think he's cribbing from himself.

[01:33:04] There's like the stuff from Darkman where he shoves the guy's, the Uncle Ben's killer from, oh, it's the same shot. It's the same fucking shot. It's so good. And I remember sitting in the theater in 2002 going, it's Darkman. Because I was such a big Sam Raimi fan

[01:33:17] that he was copying himself. And I was like, I couldn't, like they didn't just hire Sam Raimi. They let him make a Sam Raimi movie. But I think part of it is, I mean, he keeps on talking in these archival interviews

[01:33:26] about like, I really thought they would hire someone who had made big movies like this before. And he was like, my movies don't connect on that level. They're not at this level of budget. He had never made a movie. What's his most expensive movie before this?

[01:33:38] Like the Quick and the Dead maybe? Right? That would be my guess. Like a 40 maybe million dollar movie or whatever. You know, like yeah. But I think the thing he had going for him was that he was a problem solver. And that from a studio level,

[01:33:51] they're like, we still don't know how to make these things work on screen and how to make them not look stupid. And you almost need someone who can think creatively more than someone who has. This movie makes everything that could look stupid look not stupid. Essentially.

[01:34:04] The Green Goblin costume shirt. Like there's a couple of things where you're like, okay. That's the closest. But the hoverboard fucking rules. It does. The gliders. The gliders. The bombs are great. The glider peep-bangs. What do we think of leaked at me?

[01:34:17] What do we think of the bomb that turns people into Skellingtons? I like it. I love it. It's pretty good. It's one of the coolest weapons ever. Yeah. It never recurs, right? You never, it would have been funny if he came out

[01:34:28] in the MCU and Skellington, like Tom Holland. He's like, I still got these fucking things. Instant death. Yes. If this thing is near you. And then the Skellingtons turn to like dust. Out of here. It is a truly deadly weapon.

[01:34:43] I don't know why the military is not interested. That was one thing that I was rewatching. It is crazy the military are like, Norman, this is all bullshit. I'm like, I don't know. He has this bad-ass glider and they're like, we've seen the glider.

[01:34:55] And it's like, I feel like you guys would love the glider. Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's great. Compared to whatever fucking thing they go to see and then get a bomb. Oh yeah, the thing sucks. It looks like garbage. It looks like a cold medicine pill or whatever.

[01:35:09] It's so weird. It looks like a bad RoboCop villain. It looks like the kind of thing that like. It's Ed 201. Right, and it would malfunction and kill someone and then they would, yeah, that would be the punchline. It's so fucking bad.

[01:35:22] It is funny when Remy talks about like, well, we weren't gonna do the fucking prosthetic goblin face because I don't understand the internal logic of that and we really want to build it up, make sense why he does it. His bombs turn you into skeletons.

[01:35:32] No, no, sorry, go ahead. No, no, you know what I like about the skeleton mom thing? It's like a thing you read in one panel of a comic book when you're a kid that clearly was a tossed up idea that you're like, this haunted me for decades.

[01:35:43] I never stopped thinking. How would that be allowed? Yeah, how, yes. This one image. I mean, Sam Remy does like also, he does like skeletons. He does, he loves the bones. So it's an excuse again to put a little more

[01:35:54] Sam Remy energy into the movie and I like that. If anything, I mean, if he's cribbing his own shots from Darkman, once they turn into skeletons, Green Goblin should take some of their bones and turn them into fucking instruments again and start doing a little army of darkness.

[01:36:05] Yep, he should play them bones. Bones island. Yeah, bones island. Give me a bone flute, baby. No, what I was gonna say is, he's like, I want there to be the process of understanding how this costume would come to be and the glider is experimental technology

[01:36:18] and you have that one shot where you see the guy testing the glider and he's wearing the suit and I guess this is the insulated suit and you're like, okay, I get that's what the suit looks like and then you're like, and of course he collects rare masks.

[01:36:31] So then he just makes a vacuform mask in the same aesthetic style as the body suit that looks kind of like his face. Yeah, that's true. I mean, he puts the rare masks in there, I guess to explain it. He inhales green smoke. He does.

[01:36:46] His fucking ass should be green. And I'm gonna say that again. Oh, you're just mad that his skin is, but he has to be able to be normal old Norman Osborn. He turns and then he transforms and then.

[01:36:57] There is a version in the comics where that does happen. Right, where he actually turns. He sort of hulks out. Yeah, he kind of like a demon. Yeah, this big literal goblin character. Not my favorite interpretation. No, but I mean, it's also,

[01:37:07] do you know what Norman Osborn looks like in the comic? Oh, show them the hairstyle. I do kind of think hindsight's 20, 20. They never would have done this at the time, but you do sort of feel like he should inhale the green fumes and it should just be

[01:37:18] whenever he gets wound up, you put prosthetics on Willem Dafoe and he wears a fucking hoodie and it's like a green face that isn't full monster, but is enough different. So Norman Osborn, he has kind of a classic hairstyle that is inexplicable. A widow's peak waves.

[01:37:36] Deep widow's peak. Deep widow's peak with these, right, this kind of like red and black waves. Weird ridges, like tight wavy hair. Which Harry has as well, and then Sandman has, which always used to confuse me, that like why does Sandman have Osborn hair?

[01:37:47] Yeah, Sandman has similar hair, they related. Yeah. Who's that second picture? Is it him again? That's Harry. This is his son, Harry. Of course, that's James Franco. This doesn't read Franco to you, James? No, he looks like that weird, like 90s sort of like subculture leader.

[01:38:03] Do you know him, the fake religion? Do you know what I'm talking about? Oh, Jim Jones? The guy with like the pipe. It was like an underground zine thing. Okay. I'm talking to the wrong crowd. Yeah, clearly. I'll figure out what that is, anyway.

[01:38:14] Yeah, he looks like Mac Tonight is what he looks like. He doesn't look like James Franco. No, he doesn't. I mean- It's funny that James Franco is also in the concession where it's like Sony screen tested all these like brooding young heartthrobs.

[01:38:25] Raimi put his chips down on Maguire and then they were like, can you at least put fucking Franco as the friend? Well, he makes sense in the movie. Church of the subgenius. Okay. He makes to me, he has that same, it's sort of a-

[01:38:38] Yeah, I get you, Ben. He's like the rich version of his character from Freaks and Geeks. You know, the guy who's just kind of like handsome but dumb. He's also a very good match for Defoe. I think he is- Yes, they are good together.

[01:38:50] Very good in these movies and so well cast. And it was, it is funny to think about what an exciting actor he was. It was corny that he had this Brando thing, right? Where he, you know, and eventually he got kind of sick

[01:39:02] of it, but like in the 2000s he was exciting. People really thought, yeah. And like when he's, we'll get to fucking Oz, the great and powerful. Yeah. I really, and like Rise of the Planet of the Apes,

[01:39:11] I really feel like it became this kind of thing of like, why is Franco so phoned in? Like- He's just like so boring. He got like so dull in those movies. Yeah. And he used to be such a live wire.

[01:39:21] I mean, I know he's like, you know, a problematic figure. There are a lot of things going on with him. But like, yeah, it's, but I really like him in these movies, but it is, I mean, again, the setup of these is so weird

[01:39:34] where it's like, okay, there are a bunch of 25 year olds. They go to high school. I'm like, all right, whatever. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. Toby, Peter Parker's a nerd. He's got glasses. See? Yes. Mary Jane, she's pretty, likes her. Yeah. She's got red hair.

[01:39:48] She's dating Flash Thompson who looks like a linebacker. It's Joe Manganiello. And then you're like, and his best friend is this guy in like an Armani suit with like up hair. Like it doesn't make sense that they're friends, except I guess that Norman is weird.

[01:40:01] Like it makes more sense that Norman's his friend in the comics because he looks like a dork. Right, right, I see what you're saying. He should be that in this universe. And then Norman- Harry should be the cool kid in school because he's rich. Sorry, Harry. Yeah, yeah.

[01:40:13] He's rich and handsome and all this stuff. But again, like when Harry like stumbles into a relationship with MJ, you're like, this isn't a tough sell for me. The guy is handsome. No, I will say, I had a friend like this in high school. Sure.

[01:40:27] And he was like absurdly rich and well-connected and like so uncomfortable with it. And like- He's all messed up by his weird dad. I get it, I get it. And like went out of his way to dress down.

[01:40:37] And it was like a thing where people had to realize how handsome he was, where he acted so uncomfortable that people had to be like, oh, that guy's got very good bone structure. There is that thing, I do buy in this movie,

[01:40:50] it's a bit of a stretch, but I do buy it that when he goes up to talk to Mary Jane, it's like the first time that she's actually looking at his face and being like, oh, you're hot. Right. Hot guy. I could date you.

[01:41:01] So they go on a classic tour. I think the funniest moment, my wife noted this, is when the teacher comes over to Harry and he's like, we're going to talk about how you listen. And I'm like, he's a grown man. He looks like four years younger than you.

[01:41:15] The teacher, yes. Yes. You know, everything's like, we're going to talk about how you listen. He's not six years old. Also, this is supposedly like a week before they all graduate from high school. What are you going to do to him? This is a nothing field trip.

[01:41:27] This is one of those field trips that a teacher scheduled because they're like, look, I don't want to teach anymore. I don't want to teach anymore. Right. So at this tour of a science lab, Peter Parker gets bitten by a genetically engineered spider grip.

[01:41:39] Can I just say quickly? You can. Watching this movie, which I had not seen in a couple of years. Oh wow. You know, and two, I prefer, as do most people. Matt, I assume you do as well. Oh, for sure. I mean, it's, yeah.

[01:41:54] It's not like this is my favorite movie of all time, but it certainly was a very important movie to me in terms of when it came out and all that sort of shit. I was watching and realizing like,

[01:42:01] oh, I do think this movie, perhaps even more so than two, just because of when it came out, is imprinted upon me in the way that like some people who were like 13 when Jurassic Park came out or Raiders or Star Wars, where they're like,

[01:42:15] I know every fucking line and shot of this. Where I was watching it and I was just like, I know every line that this fucking teacher at the field trip says. I was surprised by how much I remembered everything so perfectly as well. The timing of it.

[01:42:27] Because I don't think of this as a movie that I endlessly rewatched. No, I don't either. I might have been. But this is what I'm saying. I've seen it a lot, I guess. I saw it at least three times in theaters,

[01:42:36] but I do think it was just such a big cultural moment that it was like everything from that first viewing is burned in entirely down to little things that just as they came up, I was like, right, when there's that tracking shot through the bus

[01:42:49] showing like all the nerds on the bus to Mary Jane, right? Or it's when he's looking for his. When he's looking for his and everyone's like, no way, buddy. Yeah. There's the fat guy eating a donut. And clearly Ramy wants the gag of the jelly

[01:43:04] coming out of the side of the donut. And in order to get the maximum impact of that, he's taking a bite out of the wrong side. So there's the side with the bite already out of it. So the opening is there for the jelly to spill.

[01:43:16] You're right, you're right. Right, and then things like that. But you're like, I remember exactly that approach to donut eating or whatever. It's burned in my memory. And then this fucking teacher being like, I swear to God. We're gonna talk about how you listen.

[01:43:26] My last warning, whatever he says. You were talking during that entire woman's speech. But he's still like, got that weird vibe. Who's the woman? She's so recognizable. She's one of those people who's in everything. The scientist. The scientist, yeah. A spider sense, if you will.

[01:43:39] I do like that scene. Like just the rhythms of every line reading. Even more than the direct words. I just love the way they introduce like, here's this power, here's this power, this power. No, they do a good job.

[01:43:48] And then it's like, and here's all our super spiders. But there's one missing. And you look at your watch and it's minute six and there was a three minute credit sequence. Like this movie is economical. Well, once you've been told the story,

[01:44:00] it's not for the faint of heart. No. There's really not a lot more runway you need to lie. And they've also, that's the thing. They've let you down easily. They've let you know that you've been lied to and they're gonna take care of you from here on out.

[01:44:09] Peter gets bitten by a spider. A rewrite. And he gets the powers of a spider through this bite. Yeah, it'd be funny if Stanley's origin was just like, got bitten by a spider. This one time, he turns into a spider. No radiation at all.

[01:44:22] He's just a regular old spider. Go hunt spiders, kids. In parallel, and I forgot that it really is in parallel, is the Norman Osborn origin story. Like it's pretty much at the same time. Which is why Ramey cut Doc Ock,

[01:44:36] because he was like, I really wanna kind of go 50-50. Yeah, yeah. And so there's just a lot of the bored, Mendelstrom, which is the kind of thing MCU would never do. You're not burning a minor villain on some guy who's in two scenes.

[01:44:49] But that, another line reading where he's listing like the side effects, he goes, back to formula. Back to insanity. Insanity. Enhanced aggression. And then he takes the pause, insanity. But yes, back to formula. That's my favorite line in Spider-Man. I mean, I forgot that Norman drops,

[01:45:08] I'm something of a scientist myself. Like that's right at the start basically. Pretty much his introduction. He is something of a scientist. He is. He talks so much about how he is like an objective based actor. He is based, I mean, I agree. He's a base guy.

[01:45:22] No, but like he, Defoe is so non-methody that he's like, here's what I do. I read the script and it tells me what to do and then I do the thing. Yeah, I mean, and I've heard- He's like, I don't internalize it. Right, like when I interviewed,

[01:45:33] or talked to Eggers for the Lighthouse, he said like how Defoe's approach really freaked Pattinson out. Right, because- Because Defoe's just like, let's do stuff, baby. And Pattinson's like, no, I've been like thinking very hard about this and like rehearsing this character. Defoe's like a golem.

[01:45:45] Like he writes something down and put it in his mouth and he's like, okay. You know? And he talks about, it's like, it's why he wanted to do this. Like he was like, a cartoon movie, that's fun. Like I'll go big

[01:45:55] and I'll do all the moving and everything. Is it okay if I go big, mister? Yeah, he's right off his Oscar nomination. His first Oscar nomination. Oh, second, sorry. Second, Shadow of the Vampire. Right, yeah. But yeah, yeah, he's good. He's so fucking good.

[01:46:09] Can I have a very hot take that's probably not true? Okay. He's better in two. I kind of agree. In that just one scene. Because that one scene is the scene I think about the most. Maybe it's because I've seen two more. Yeah. But avenge me!

[01:46:24] Like, I think about that all the time. That scene's incredible. I do think he has the benefit in two of never having to wear this fucking costume. Yeah, maybe that's it. Which look, I've come all the way around to not having a little bit of affinity for it.

[01:46:34] I don't know if it's just nostalgia at this point. Because even at the time I was like, costumes, tough pill to swallow. But no, I mean the fucking mirror scene. That's the one I just remember A.O. Scott waxing Ripsodic about where he's like,

[01:46:47] this movie just stops cold to let a good actor stare at a mirror and have a conversation with himself for five minutes. That stuff's all great. And there's like no effects and there's that moment where he's like. He's so good that the way his face changes

[01:46:59] and shit, this is before Gollum had entered the scene. I know. I guess he was briefly in the frame. But you know that moment where he's like holding newspaper up to himself as like Green Goblin and then you see it within the one shot with no cuts.

[01:47:12] He just drops the goblin and looks at the paper. You know, like. But this is the thing. He's best in those back to formula. When he grabs him. Back to formula. He's so good at the physicality of just kinda. You just feel like his. Freak out. Yeah, yeah.

[01:47:29] His veins pulsing. It just has a lot of. Fucking shirtless DeFoe turning green and giving him slightly like a little bit of a nose or contact lenses or fucking whatever. Just being like he monsters out. Enthusiastic nodding from him.

[01:47:40] 5% so that he's unrecognizable and you put him in a hood. Because also didn't he wear a hat in the comics? Didn't he have like a goblin hat? He has like this goofy like cap, this purple cap. I miss the cap. I like the hat.

[01:47:52] It's why his head is so like. Yeah, they're trying to mimic the shape with that helmet. It is so. He has some great lines though. I mean, yeah, he's good in two. But you're like talking about ravening wolves. No, he's really good.

[01:48:04] I mean, I love him in this. I do love it. Think about it. Hero, the heart Norman. We attack the heart. That's the one. All these lines. Educating him in the matters of pain and loss. Looking at his fucking armchair. What do you want from me?

[01:48:23] The heart Norman. I mean, the same we were texting about this last night, you know, to move back to Peter's storyline. Obviously he enters an amateur wrestling competition. Or I guess semi-professional. I don't know. How are we describing this event? The wrestling, I mean,

[01:48:41] just from the very beginning of Spider-Man, the wrestling is very, I mean, it doesn't seem like Stanley knew that wrestling was fake when he made Spider-Man. And they've sort of maintained that through the years. Just sort of hilarious. Bonesaw just sells every line so perfectly.

[01:48:54] I'd say three things quickly before we get to Bonesaw. I know we're moving very slowly through this movie. We are and we need to move a lot faster. I want to say a couple. I don't have to leave by the way,

[01:49:02] so we can just talk for a while. Okay, we can talk a little bit. I still have it. You have to leave. Eventually. I'll just say a couple quick things. Just incredible little Raimi things, okay? First of all, obviously the gag with him catching

[01:49:13] all the food in the fucking tray in the cafeteria. Incredible. It's so good and truly seared in my memory. Every catch. Yes, right. Because it's just like a perfect simple effect. It's the stuff that Raimi's so good at where it's just like, this is the cheap stuff.

[01:49:26] This is him jerry-rigging. We went to, Ben and I, we went to a bar the other night. We were playing darts and there was a guy impatiently waiting for the darts board while we were fucking up and doing a very bad job.

[01:49:37] You guys were not good at darts? Shocking. You would be a stoner. But then we ended up realizing this guy was fucking worked on vinyl. I knew this guy back in the day. Then we were talking about Raimi, he worked on Spider-Man two and three

[01:49:50] and he was saying the thing that was incredible about Raimi was if he wanted more smoke in a scene, he would like grab a grip who smoked and just be like, here's a tube. Just start puffing cigarettes and blow the smoke. That feels very Evil Dead, right?

[01:50:04] Where he's just like, come on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just think they're those gags like that. Another image that's seared my head is when Peter gets chased out of the cafeteria because he's fucking slammed the tray on flash.

[01:50:15] The tray going up the door is so funny. Things like that, they're just very tactile, very simple in camera, whatever. And then that flash fight is so well done. It is. And it's specifically the thing that like the Garfield movie fucks up so badly

[01:50:26] where you're like, this scene feels mean. Yeah, well, in the Garfield movie, does he fight them in a subway train or something? Basketball. Yeah, that's it, basketball. Yeah, and it does feel mean. It feels like he's being a bully or whatever.

[01:50:37] Right, and he keeps on doing that thing. There's the spider sense moment where there's the CGI, like spitball in the paper airplane, but there's more of the thing where flash punches him. And he goes like, what? He pulls his head back and he takes a look

[01:50:48] at what he's done. Right, and every time he lands a punch on flash, he's like, huh? I'm like surprised. It has this great energy of that whole part is like, first the stuff in the cafeteria is super nightmarish. Like where, what is this coming out of my hands

[01:51:03] and why can't I get rid of it? And now everyone's looking at me. It has that like- Very teenage nightmare. Yes, that teenage nightmare of, I forgot my lines in the school play. I forgot to do my homework kind of thing.

[01:51:12] You have two separate moments where he thinks Mary Jane is waving to him and isn't. It happens outside the field trip and again by the lockers. And then with the fight, it has this wonderful fantasy element where he actually gets to beat up his own bully.

[01:51:25] The thing that every nerd ever dreamed of in high school. But then again, it immediately turns where one of the other guys, who I don't think is named, I don't know who that character is or the actor. He was like, wow. Say Chad.

[01:51:37] Some Chad is like, wow, Parker, you are a freak. So like his one moment of triumph immediately again, that whole Spider-Man has to ruin Peter Parker's life. It immediately goes from, I did it to, oh, I am a loser. It has me like step forward two steps back.

[01:51:52] That ping ponging back and forth between nightmare and fantasy is amazing. Same with the wrestling, of course he's triumphant. He does great, but you're not gonna get any money. Back and forth. There's a clean line of like, he sees her get in the car with Flash Thompson.

[01:52:06] That's the thing he'll never have. I mean, Flash is so cool. The spiky hair, the tank top. 30 years old. He's the world's tallest man. He's gonna be in Magic Mike XXL at some point. Big Dick Richie. He'll play- Big Dick Richie. No, I know.

[01:52:22] Is it Deadshot or what do you see characters as? Deathstroke. Deathstroke, sorry. Right, right. Wade Wilson. Wade Wilson. Slade. Slade Wilson. Because Wade Wilson is a joke version of- Right, right, Jesus. Do you have that Deadpool comic where he goes back to Amazing Spider-Man 36 or one of them?

[01:52:39] I don't think I do. It's such a classic. It's a Joe Kelly one. Do you have it? Have you ever read that? No. And every time he sees Norman or Harry Osborn, he's like, what is the matter with your hair? It's so good.

[01:52:51] He goes back to one of the Kraven. Anyway, it's a really funny comic. And we don't have time, we should push along, but just shout out Macho Man. Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Now we're gonna- Okay, so now we're gonna- We do love the costume.

[01:53:04] I assume we all love the costume designing montage, something that is never in these movies anymore. No, and feels very Dark Manny as well. Very, yeah. But then he takes a minute- Sort of the montage. You're like, all right, let me get some graphing paper

[01:53:17] and I'm gonna really like- Right, and you're like, this guy's a good draftsman. Like, he's got a clean line. He could probably draw comics if he wanted. Because it's what's so annoying about the MCU. In the first Iron Man, he builds that suit.

[01:53:29] It's so crucial to the evolution of the story. But then after that, is it just like, yeah, you had some guy knock this together for you. Off the rack, it's all fucking shield. Right, yeah, no. You know, when we meet Spider-Man, obviously.

[01:53:39] And I just love the fucking thick marker coloring it in. It's so good. There's the MTV Movie Awards parody of this from this year when Jack Black and Sarah Michelle Gellar hosted the show. And it is crazy how iconic this movie was already

[01:53:55] that they're not just referencing and parodying plot beats, but they're also parodying the sort of like, the visual language of this movie. And it was already specific enough of like, this is what the costume designing montage looks like. I mean, I do also like the connecting the dots

[01:54:10] of the screenplay where it's like, MJ goes off with Flash in his car and he goes to look at cars, car ads. He's gonna buy a car. Wrestling, dollar signs. And that's where he sees the wrestling. Like, the way that they connect it actually is just very nice.

[01:54:25] How it all structured and flows together. And Remy said that like, he credits Spider-Man comics in particular with being one of the things that taught him how to be a filmmaker. Cause it was like, how do you put as much story in one image?

[01:54:36] If A then B needs to be right. No, but you're right. The storytelling aspect. The screenwriting aspect. But he was like, how do you put as much story in what image and make it sort of graphically exciting? And that whole sequence feels like,

[01:54:47] how do you establish in two panels why he needs to do all of this? Now, in the comics, Matt, you can probably confirm this for me, right? It's Crusher Hogan. He's the wrestler. That is the name of the wrestler. Which is a fine name.

[01:55:00] It's not a bad name. But Bonesaw McGraw, who is so good. And I truly do wish I was one of those people with the, you know, the like a cardboard saw. Yes, yeah. You wish you were in that scene.

[01:55:13] So the only times you wished you were on camera. Yet another Remy-esque nod to himself, having the guys sawing off their arms. Yeah, it's true. But I just thought the thought process I was like, I love going back. Bruce Campbell was in the scene, of course.

[01:55:24] That underground wrestling thing with the sort of right it up guy. He's my favorite. I'm gonna make a homemade saw. I love it, I love it. And it's so funny that it is Macho Man. Not playing Macho Man. Right. Macho Man is so distinctive.

[01:55:38] And they come up with this other thing for him. I mean, when we recorded our Darkman episode and we were asking White what he thought of the Spider-Man and he was like, I think I took Nick Holt to the first one.

[01:55:46] Is the first one the one with Bonesaw? Like, new? Not is the first one the Green Goblin, but I feel like Bonesaw lives- Just give me a couple lines. He lives in our heart. Ready? Hey buddy, you ain't going nowhere. Bonesaw is ready.

[01:56:01] I got you for three minutes. And he just threw like this. His fingers look like Vienna sausages. He's everything about him is just like the fucking casing is overstuffed. What an actor. There's a lot of great stuff in this movie. He's incredible.

[01:56:16] I cannot believe he is not like bursting blood vessels on camera. And I actually have a later moment that's my personal favorite moment in this movie. You're going nowhere. I argue this is the best part of the movie. Unbelievably. A case could be made.

[01:56:30] A case could be made. Just like the, I can't believe it. Right. Yes. The power for every line reading. Bruce Campbell doing a great job obviously. That's every bit of that is hilarious. Like, I mean, the way they dragged that out is so good. The cage coming down.

[01:56:46] What is this event? Octavia Spencer, an incredible one-shot performer. She's really funny. Octavia Spencer where you're like- That was her. She would pop up in movies for one scene. This was her whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As like a sassy lady.

[01:56:58] I mean, before she became a multi-Oscar nominee and winner. Yes. No, but this is- Bruce Campbell names Spider-Man. He gives him the name. He does. Which is another, I think, huge Ramey-esque touch that Bruce Campbell is the one who gives him the name the amazing Spider-Man.

[01:57:11] The shitty unscrupulous wrestling promoter. Like all of this is so fucking good. Bonesaw's so funny. Obviously the did your husband make it for you joke does not age well. Yeah, no. That is one of the few moments that feels very dated.

[01:57:25] I know and feels even just a little too mean. It also, it feels like a writer's room thing, right? Like some guy came in for the- That would never fly today. Well, it should not. I feel like even when people were critical of Toby,

[01:57:36] they were like, that is the one scene where he's like up against a wall cracking jokes at a guy. You know, he's like taunting the dude a little bit and it feels good natured. But of course- It doesn't feel too mean aside from-

[01:57:47] Right, and he's not fighting a criminal yet. Who's the guy who plays the criminal? Michael Papa John, right? We talked about him, right? He appeared in one of the other movies. He's in for the love of the game. He's Sam Tuttle, of course the feared Yankee batter.

[01:58:00] Okay, he's also, he's one of those guys who I think works very often as a stuntman or stunt coordinator and then does some acting on the side. That's his on screen. That's how he reads, right? Right, but this is one of his bigger parts

[01:58:12] in terms of, yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to look up how the thief looks in Spider-Man. Obviously it's, the way they render it visually is very similar. It varies from time to time. Here they give him the fucking Corbin Dallas. Yeah, he's got this like-

[01:58:26] That's exactly who it is. But it's also grown out so the bottom half is dark now. Yeah, a little sleazy. Yeah, he looks, he's got that team too. I guess in the comics he has blonde hair. He generally has blonde hair.

[01:58:38] And he ran an amazing fantasy, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it where the brown jacket and the green hat? So I guess they're trying to kind of evoke that. It's vaguely reminiscent. I do love him going, thanks, as the, like that's the real punch.

[01:58:48] Well, the two parts, the two parts that are amazing about the staging, and again, like Sam Raimi just like shooting and stage, is that it's not just that he lets him go. He moves out of the way. Yep, right. And then of course- It's not just inaction.

[01:59:01] It's not just inaction. It is that he moves aside and that the burglar acknowledges it and says, thanks, is like- And that he has that shit eating grin when he says like, I missed the part with that. That's my problem.

[01:59:13] You know, look, the guy screwed him out of three grand. It feels good in that moment. Like when you're watching it, even though you know what's coming, you're like, hell yeah. It's always one step forward, two steps back for Peter. Like that has to be the formula

[01:59:25] for any good Spider-Man story. The promoter is our friend from the bar in- Yes. Love of the Game. Yes, yes. Yes, right, right, yes, yes, of course. And of course, Rosemary Harris is in the gift. He's actually borrowing a lot of his recent- J.K. Simmons.

[01:59:40] J.K. Simmons is in the gift too. Is in the gift and in For Love of the Game. Right. That's the funny thing. It's like now the last two people to play Mary Jane have been Academy Award winners, right? Yes. And even like Lily Tomlin in Spider-Verse.

[01:59:53] And Cliff Robertson- Jesus. They talk about JJ Hadman notes that he was like- He's an Oscar winner. The guy they were really trying to sell where they were like, we need you to be our Brando. You're our like Gravitas.

[02:00:02] But it's like, he's a guy who won best actor like 50 years earlier, 40 years earlier. Yeah, in the 60s, right, Charlie, right? You know, it's like Flowers for Allegra. I've never seen it. It's not like they're getting Gene Hackman to play. Rosemary Harris has an Oscar nomination too.

[02:00:15] I mean, let's give it up. Tom and Viv. Tom and Viv, yes. Oh, so somewhat recently. I'm just saying Cliff Robertson, excellent in this fucking movie. But it's like five years later, they would have been like, we need the number one elder statesman in Hollywood. 100%.

[02:00:29] Well, they got Martin Sheen for the- Exactly. Sheen is really good- He's fucking good. In that movie. I mean, he's so suited to it. Yeah. But there's something- And Sally Field is really good too. Like everyone in those movies is good. It's just those movies stink.

[02:00:42] Yeah, it's not the actors. They smell bad. But the cast is like A plus. We talk so much about Leary. Dennis Leary is incredible in the first one. Stone is wonderful. Stone and Garfield have genuine chemistry. Garfield's really good.

[02:00:54] It's just that the movies look shitty and are bad. It's weird that you say Garfield. Well, he doesn't like Mondays. Yeah, he hates them. And we're recording on Monday and it's rude. That's rude. Well, we're not recording about his movie. So I'm sure he hates it.

[02:01:09] By the way, we're doing the two Garfield movies on Patreon. I mean, honestly, fine. We'll fall asleep though. I mean, they're bad. You're tired. I'm trying to do you a favor. You're always asking for a nap. So yeah, he learns with great power comes great resource.

[02:01:23] I think the Uncle Ben scene is really tough. It's good. Oh, it's so good. You know? It's not stingy. He doesn't have like a beautiful tip of the tongue. He doesn't say something crazy. He doesn't get to say like, it's okay.

[02:01:34] Like he's like in agony and like crying. The last thing they did obviously was they fought and Peter says something mean to him. I mean, another- My dad. Turns off some 41 on the radio. Maybe that's why he's so upset. He's paid for pleasure.

[02:01:48] I mean, we're gonna talk about the soundtrack, but it is funny that that's the only one of the songs that actually gets used in the movie and it gets used for like five seconds. He's like, I'm gonna turn this garbage off.

[02:01:57] No, in terms of things that are seared in my mind about this movie, there's something about the angle from which Ramey shoots Cliff Robertson. When he's lying there dying and like Cliff Robertson, you know, I think had some work done to his face,

[02:02:10] has weird old man Hollywood sort of like trying to fight aging a little bit. He's got that kind of funny hair. He's got a funny, I think early hair plugs sort of look. I mean, I don't want to disparage the movie. That is the vibe.

[02:02:21] No, but there's something about like when he's lying there, his like upper lip is hanging to the side and does this like, Peter. And there's something so unglamorous about the way that he dies. Like it's not a like my final breath I bestow onto you. It's like upsetting.

[02:02:35] He looks scared. He looks scared. He looks scared to die. He looks scared and sad and he can barely get the words out. Yeah, yeah. Poor Uncle Ben. It's still wretched. We should mention Uncle Ben's car, of course, is the classic, is Ramy's car, the Asha's car. Yeah.

[02:02:50] You know, and he found a parking spot right there on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Great place to park. Did he just sit in the car and listen to the fat lip? Did he like go to Jadar Music World? Like what the fuck did he do?

[02:03:02] Like I just don't know what he did all day. I'm going to go get some noodles. He could drive like forward and back to Queens just over and over again, like maybe. A very sweet moment of Peter coming home to Aunt May.

[02:03:15] Yeah, I mean that stuff is all really good. Like him talking to her about the last time they talked and all that. Right. She's, it's so corny now. You couldn't do it now. No. I'm not even criticizing like the new movies. Like you just couldn't do it now.

[02:03:29] It's just too straightforward. No. Yeah, people would just be like eh. No, but she is so fucking good. She is great. I mean, she's obviously, she's such a favorite from dang meme lords, right? Like I mean the scene of her praying. Yes. And then Green Goblin blowing up.

[02:03:47] Breaks through the window. It is undeniably funny out of context. But she's someone, she just like, she has the exact. Deliver us from evil. Deliver us! Well and then the fucking moon dance cafe yelling back at her boss. Yeah. That is, I forgot that,

[02:04:04] I don't know how I forgot that she works in the moon dance, but she does. She should have been in the Tick Tick Boom montage. No, but it's great. That's a fuck up thing. It's like Rami. Mary Jane worked here. But Rami trying to like weaponize

[02:04:15] like what is the magic of New York City, right? It's like the Jonathan Larson fairy tale of like this guy worked at this diner, meanwhile he was writing Rent. Who knew he was gonna change Broadway? It's like Mary Jane is working at the place

[02:04:25] where she hopes that she's about to have. But like all, three I just don't know as well, but the first two, you know, Spider-Man working at the pizza place. Like Spider-Man, these movies are so good at the New York jobs. Which was a real pizza place.

[02:04:37] I don't know if it's still there anymore. They moved it two doors down. Okay, but like when I moved to New York, it was there and I was like, I'm going to get a slice of pizza at the Spider-Man pizza place.

[02:04:46] It's one of the best places in New York City. Pizza time. It's two doors, what? Pizza time. Pizza time. It's two doors down on the same block on the other side around the corner, but they still have the sign that says Spider-Man two was shot here.

[02:04:57] But all that stuff is great. But yes, her mean boss who's like, hey, Mary Jane, I'm talking to you. Like Jesus, you know? Excuse me, Ms. Watson. The rhythms of these lines, I know so well. The energies that actors are bestowing upon them.

[02:05:14] So he's the freaky guy who's got webs coming out of his fucking hands or something. Oh my God. He shoots the ropes and then he climbs up on them. I love that that guy is clearly not an actor. That they were like, shoot fucking Jim Norton and people.

[02:05:27] Let's shoot Lucy Mollet. I think he stinks. Is that what you're saying? I don't like him and I think he stinks. But then there are a couple, like the entire lighting style is different on that guy where they clearly went to some real New Yorkers

[02:05:39] and went, describe Spider-Man. He does the thing when he shoots, he goes like this and the ropes come out. He's doing jazz hands. Yeah, not even close to the fingers. Again, you could never do this. But yeah, the man on the street shit.

[02:05:53] I think he's got a cute little butt and like cutting before she says butt or whatever. Right? Like, oh. Guy dresses up like a spider. Obviously, you know, it's around now that you bring in J. Jones, Jamison, right? Like it's somewhere there, right? It's right after this.

[02:06:09] I mean, so what, you have? Great power of great receipt. You know, he makes the costume. You have, I just like. Well, he catches the boy, stops the burglar. We totally skipped that scene. Well, of course, right. Which it's another thing,

[02:06:19] but that's the only scene in the movie that kind of feels like it's out of a 2002 action movie where it gets sort of dark and upsetting. It's a little too violent and it has to be like, oh, he's not going to do this again.

[02:06:29] Yeah, and he doesn't kill him, but he kind of, you know, knocks him out. He falls out of the window. Right. Another classic Spider-Man moment. He falls, you know, he gets his revenge or avenges Uncle Ben. Doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel good.

[02:06:43] And immediately the cops show up and think he killed him. And so he's immediately a wanted man and all that. Just classic Spidey. More, I keep, I'm, you know, repeating myself, but another really nice Spider-Man touch. And the J.K. Simmons. It comes right out of that montage.

[02:06:59] The New Yorkers talk about a montage. The subway busker who sings the really good version of the Spider-Man song. Of course, we should give him a nice big hug. I truly think the first Donner Superman is the only other one that does this. Which does very well.

[02:07:13] We need to sell how important this character is and every step of how he gets to this point is like, is at mythical status now. It's not even like, oh, the lore, we have to get the lore right. It's like, you need to understand

[02:07:25] what this guy represents to people. And I rewatched the Donners and all the multiple cuts recently. And like, the Donner has that feeling that is so incredible, but you're like, half of that movie is the most boring shit in the world. It's a little.

[02:07:37] The last hour is like, impermanable once it gets into the Luther land grab and everything. This movie, I always, in my mind's eye was like, oh, it's a little bit like that where when it works, it's like magical and there's stuff that's wonky.

[02:07:48] And you and I were texting about it and like rewatching it now, you're like, what complaints did I ever have about this? I just am so harmed by this fucking thing. And even just the energy of that fucking montage

[02:08:01] going to like camera in the web as he's like busting cops and then like the newspaper spinning and then landing on the desk. And then just like full screwball banter. You know, but also just the rhythms of it are so perfect. You know, the wife's on the phone,

[02:08:18] like, you know, Ted Raimi coming in. Yeah. There's a problem with Paige. It's his girl Friday all of a sudden. It's so good. It's exactly what you need. Bill Nunn, as Robbie Robertson. Of course. Great calm energy. Right, in between albums, in between Scorsese soundtracks.

[02:08:35] But I mean, they even gave him the hair, the flat top. Yes. I mean, that was the other part I remember, you know, sitting in the theater where I was like, holy crap, they have gone full comic because they have brought all the characters.

[02:08:49] You've got Robbie Robertson, you've got Benny Brant. He's got the flat top and he's doing like a really intense, it's like, you know, like when you're saying like watching the cartoons of Spider-Man, like that is as cartoony a J. Jonah Jameson

[02:09:03] or more so than any of the cartoons were. And Simmons audition is fascinating because obviously it's like Raimi likes the guy. I think he, you know. He'd done two movies with him. Right, was pulling for him and whatever. But you're like, you can tell that Simmons

[02:09:18] doesn't think he can go this far in the audition. Oh sure, right. He's trying to put a realistic sheen on it or whatever. Raimi's like go full Howard Hawks. This is, yeah. I mean, I love, I mean, J. Jonah Jameson

[02:09:32] is like one of my favorite comic book characters. It's funny how he's like an Oreo Hydrox thing where you're like Perry White is first but J. Jonah Jameson is so much better. Yeah. The ripoff is like so far superior.

[02:09:46] It is, I love that they do have the detail here that he does stick up for Peter in that crucial moment because the whole thing with J. Jonah Jameson he's not really a bad guy as a journalist generally except that like Spider-Man is this blind spot.

[02:10:00] Right, that he cannot get over it. He despises Spider-Man. But like there's so many good Marvel plot lines where he's kind of like a sort of Woodward and Bernstein-esque like journalistic figure. And I do, so I do like that they give him that little moment

[02:10:14] but obviously he's mostly this cartoon who wants his wife to not, you know, spend money. It's also just, you talk about fucking maximum impact. Freelance! He's into it. Best thing in the world for a guy. I'll send you some Christmas meat. Yeah. Christmas meat. Love that.

[02:10:27] Sorry, go ahead. There's the moment where he does the finger point. Yes, yeah. The door. Yeah, right. Just everything about this, it's like- That's what's good about Scrooge. Like full exchange of one sentence each then get it down to one word each

[02:10:40] and then get it down to just face gestures. Gestures, right. And just the way this shit stacks and two and three have so much more of him that you forget. Because they're like, people love this. Of course. But it's just two scenes basically, three. Pretty much.

[02:10:52] It's like two scenes, I think. Five minutes of screen time that are so fucking impactful where I just remember that like playing like fucking gangbusters with a crowd where people just like, the energy of it was unstoppable. Every single line, every look is getting like a laugh.

[02:11:08] And then you have that thing where he's, what Robbie Robertson says, like Eddie's been trying to get a photo of him all week and fans were like, can you believe? They almost had him in it. Right? Like they had like a deleted scene or something

[02:11:21] or they didn't have someone to play Eddie Bong. Anyway, sorry, carry on. No, but that was the kind of thing where you're just like, they really made this for the fans. In one scene, they refer to a guy by his first name

[02:11:31] who we know later is a guy. It's funny how that used to excite me. And now like when the MCU does it, I'm like, fuck off. You know, like in the Winter Soldier when the guy's like, Dr. Strange, I'm like, I don't care.

[02:11:45] Stop trying to jerk me off. Sorry, I do. Well, it was still, again, this was another one of those things that this movie was really one of the first to do because now it's just every movie and we're sick of it. And in this movie,

[02:11:56] someone loads a database where you see 14 names. Exactly. Right. And, you know, again, most movies try to avoid all that stuff at the time. You don't want to scare anyone off. Right, exactly. So yeah, Spider-Man fights crime. Norman Osborn pushes back against,

[02:12:16] I will say quite fairly pushes back against some pretty nasty corporate warfare. I think he did invent the company. I built this company. It's called Oscorp. There's like, we're selling it and you're pretty weird. So you're out of the deal, but. He's still like doing the work.

[02:12:30] He's not just some figurehead. He's like in the lab tinkering every night. Like he. Yeah, I mean, I will say, right. I mean, there are some downsides such as he takes his own formula, makes him insane. Back to fire. Commits murder. Back to formula.

[02:12:41] I'm saying he's not like Steve Jobs where he's like. No, no, he's. Go come up with a goblin potion. His shirt sleeves are rolled up. Yeah, it's true. He's burning the midnight oil. He has a fair point. And that's look, it's a thing that Rami is really smart

[02:12:52] about like just all the characterization. This movie is so clean, but just like the idea that you immediately see the something of a scientist myself moment hits because Norman loves that he can talk to a fucking kid who gets it.

[02:13:07] I like the little bits in the dynamic there where he's obviously more. He doesn't like his son. Right. Like he's disappointed in his son. Right. And he's sort of interested in Peter. The movie's not going to go 30 minutes into like Norman mentoring him.

[02:13:19] But there's a nice parallel to how Green Goblin is like, Spider-Man be crazy like me. Yeah. Kurt Connors and even Octavius in two and three are like much more like really guiding him. Yeah. In the early stages. But there is just the thing that like he immediately

[02:13:34] takes a shine to this kid and it immediately makes him present his own son a little more. Like who's this mopey fucking loser who hates how rich he is and doesn't even know how to make formulas. I just want to, the Green Goblin's art. Okay.

[02:13:48] He's mad that they're going to sell the company and not buy his thing. Right. Then he goes back to formula. He kills them so they can't sell the company. And then he finishes everyone else off at the unity, world unity parade. Right. Turns him into skeletons. Right.

[02:14:02] After that, he is kind of out of mission. Yes. And so again, I guess he just focuses on Spider-Man. He's just pissed off at Spider-Man slash maybe wants him to be his. For fucking with him. Yeah. Yeah. And then becomes sort of like obsessive. Right. The power.

[02:14:16] He's legitimately insane. He's mad. He's a mad man. So he sort of fixates on this person. But it is a very simple. He doesn't, you're right. He doesn't have a lot of other objectives. He actually achieves his goal. That's what I'm saying. He actually 100%.

[02:14:29] But mind you, he succeeds, but then he keeps going. What is the Joker trying to do in 89 Batman? I can't remember Rob art. Right. Like cause mischief. Like the same thing with the penguin where he's like, I hate everybody. Well, he wants to be the mayor at least.

[02:14:45] He does a run for mayor. I rewatched this the other night. He loses the mayoral campaign. And then there's a lot more audio of him speaking disparagingly about the citizens of the town. I don't like Gotham. And then the last third of the movie is just like chaos.

[02:14:57] Yes, sure. No, you're right. It's sort of a trope. It is how it goes. Right. It's another smart thing that Ramy finally does in Spider-Man two where he's like, let Doc Ock rob some banks. Let him like. Right. He needs money to build his thing.

[02:15:09] He's got a device he's trying to build and he needs to get sacks with dollar bill signs on them. He sure does. Yeah. From Joel McHale. You know, I'm just like, it's just Spider-Man solves crime. Obviously he beats up robbers who tend to wear

[02:15:23] tight fitting black clothing and you know. Ski masks. Ski masks, right? But there was no Green Goblin end of the world plot. No, there's not. There was no greater thing. He's not trying to destroy New York City. There's no portal opening in space. There's no portal.

[02:15:35] There's no blue laser beam. It is insane for how much this felt like the biggest movie in the world at the time. And it was just shorthand for like expensive, overly promoted blockbuster where you're like, it is so gentle in its tone. It has like seven primary characters.

[02:15:52] Most of them are civilians. Yeah, some of the crucial scenes like you say are, you know, Mary Jane talking to Peter in the yard. The Thanksgiving scene, you know, the weird dynamics of that. But even the final showdown happens in like an abandoned greenhouse

[02:16:05] and they throw each other through some windows. My personal favorite sequence is the fire. Oh sure. When he goes in to rescue the baby and we don't follow him in and Remy just keeps the camera on the mother's face when she's freaking out.

[02:16:19] And then he comes out with the baby. Right. And you're like, holy shit, that was so effective. And nothing even, then of course he goes back in and Greek Albin's wearing an old lady shawl. And you know, there's plenty of stuff that does that.

[02:16:29] But like, I just love- Oh, I'm an old lady. I know how I'll get him. That's a formula. Obviously that, but I do- I'm something of a scientist myself. But the simplicity of the baby and the burning, but again, you couldn't do it now. No, no.

[02:16:50] If Tom Holland does that, it's jokey. It belongs to another age. Yeah. I think I said this to you, but when I saw No Way Home and the first two hours, I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fine. There's no way home. We understand.

[02:17:03] He's tried, he's the backend prince. Imagine if this movie had the part of No Way Home where he's like, has to go to Dr. Strange. Sorry, Cary. I can't get into college. Right. Okay, I understand. But it's less about me and it's more about my friends.

[02:17:18] Have you ever used a potion on a bad holiday party? Cary, you go to the worst, it's terrible. Yeah. But I'm sitting there the whole time now just like, I think Bilger wrote a similar review where he's like, Spider-Man is the most cinematic of all superheroes.

[02:17:35] Like his power set is so cinematic. There's so much you can do with it. Even for how much I think the web movies stink and a lot of it probably is sort of second unit viz effects design teams. There are like striking images. There's some cool web swinging.

[02:17:48] They get some good things in there, right? And I think the web movies have largely been, I'm sorry, not the web, the fucking, why am I forgetting his name? Watts. Yes, the Watts movies have largely been devoid of that. Low wattage. I'm sorry? They've been low wattage. Okay.

[02:18:06] Here we go. Okay. One comedy point. The first moment in No Way Home where I got like the goosebumps feeling was when they're in fucking, it's grandma's kitchen. Mike Mitchell's least favorite location in the history of cinema. And they're like, prove that you're Spider-Man.

[02:18:27] And he walks up the wall. He just, and it's just Garfield clearly in a fucking harness holding onto the wall. And it's like this sort of Spider-Man running to the building coming out. Like the times where it's Spider-Man is just on the ground

[02:18:38] and then like Toby has to like take three steps and run and just jump off camera. And you don't even see him swing, you know, like on the rooftop when he's like, your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. And then he just runs out of frame. There's something about it.

[02:18:51] He jumps over like a trampoline that was very clearly hidden like just below the bushes. You can't see it. The fucking fork being stuck to his hand in the cafeteria. Like these things that are just these simple, it still is the stuff that hits the fucking hardest.

[02:19:06] Well, and Macy Gray, that hits hard. Macy Gray hits hard. I'm trying to think when the backyard scene happens. Between Mary Jane and Peter. That's way, we're already way past. I know, I know. Is it before Uncle Ben dies? No, it's after Uncle Ben is dead.

[02:19:21] It's after he's gotten the bite because there's the thing where she's like, you're taller than I realized. And he goes, I slouch, which is somehow the most erotical character. Well, it's right after the fight because he asks how flash is. Okay, so it's before Uncle Ben dies.

[02:19:32] Right, right. That moment, I mean, first off, it's just like coming out of the, I don't think they overdo the sort of Watson household shit. No, but you know. But she plays it very well. And there is that energy of like talking to someone

[02:19:48] when you're witnessing them in the weird emotions of a very intimate thing that's like, you know, very personal and whatever. There is a line reading that Toby has that every single time makes me want to cry in just how like delicate it is

[02:20:03] where he asks her what she wants to do. And she's like, it's fucking embarrassing. I want to be an actress. I want to be on Broadway. And then she starts talking about her dreams. And he says, that's perfect for you. And she's like- Cry to Cinderella.

[02:20:15] And she said, Peter, that was like- Kindergarten, first grade or whatever. First grade. And even still. It's that, it's even so. He like takes a long time to get through it. Such a corny response. But he's not embarrassed at all. Yes. He's like, even so.

[02:20:30] He doesn't do the, that's awkward thing. Well, you just know. You see people and you just know. Yeah, the nice part about that stuff too is kind of like with the burning building is Ramy never goes into that house. No. You just see the dad and wind down.

[02:20:45] You are with Peter. You're observing it. You're overhearing the snip. So you get the flavor of it. You know what's going on there. But he doesn't like, it's much more of the observer witnessing it. Here's another thing I love about it. He's not Spider-Man yet.

[02:20:58] He's been part of this fight. The fight ended up freaking people out more. Even when she brings it up, she was like quite a display earlier. Right, she's not into it. It's not that she's now into him because he's Spider-Man.

[02:21:07] She's sort of noticing him for the first time, even though he's been next door her entire fucking life. But the difference is that he's got a little confidence now. Like for the first time, he has the wherewithal to actually like look her in the eyes

[02:21:21] and stand in a place and not slouch and all that sort of shit. It's like it's such a sweet, tender, quiet scene. I agree. I mean, I don't think Dunst has a ton to do in this movie. She gets more in the second one.

[02:21:33] She is very damsel-y in the back half, obviously. It's also funny that she's not a redhead in this movie. She has red hair. Yeah. The color of blood. Her costumes too are very like, that's another thing about this movie that I feel like has dated. 2000s, the midriff.

[02:21:50] A lot of midriff, a lot of cleavage, a lot of tight shirts. And then of course the iconic insane kimono thing. The kimono. That as well, yeah, yeah, yeah. The way she is sort of costumed in the hair and that would, that, I mean.

[02:22:06] Very weird by the way, that Harry's like, why aren't you wearing black? My dad loves black. My dad loves black. What are you talking about? He wants your girlfriend to be in a cocktail dress? Like what do you, what is, anyway. So strange.

[02:22:15] Can we, sidebar for a second here? Sure. The Spider-Man action figure line. Oh boy. Matt has brought a representative. Should I go to the bathroom? No. No, you shan't. Okay, go on. First of all, I think it was in this weird

[02:22:28] transitional stage where after this they were like, oh, we only make the heroes and the villains. But the Spider-Man action figure line, because the movie was just so fucking anticipated, they did like all the civilian figures. Oh, it's great. So Matt has brought his Peter Parker,

[02:22:40] Tobey Maguire, good like this. He's doing a web. It's exactly the scene where he's practicing the webs in his room and he like grabs the can, the Dr. Pepper product placement. He came with the fucking bookshelf with like individual chess pieces

[02:22:53] and the lamp and all the things that you could knock down. He has a backpack, you squeeze it and it shoots water out of his web hand. Which is smart. That's the smartest way anyone's ever done his fucking web shooting as an action figure.

[02:23:06] I like that, yes, it's an action figure of just him in his bedroom with a fucking bookshelf knocking things over, okay? The Mary Jane action figure was her in the kimono and her action feature, because they have to make it exciting to sell to little boys.

[02:23:18] She came with the little balcony and he pushed a button and it fell over. It would fall over. Literally just had- That's very Broadway. It feels like the chandelier in Phantom. It was damsel in distress action. Attachable balcony. No, it was damsel in distress action

[02:23:32] where you could just bounce it on the wall and push a button and have her fall down so Spider-Man could catch her. I mean, yeah. Maybe my favorite action figure of all time, the J.K. Simmons. Oh, I was just gonna say,

[02:23:40] the best one though is the J. Jonah Jameson. It has desk slamming action. Yes. There's a button on the back, he slams his fist up and he holds his pointer finger up and they built the desk where it has like little rattling pieces

[02:23:51] that will actually like rattle and move. Right, there's like a bottle of heart medication and then like a stack of files and whatever and they're attached but loosely so when he slams it, everything shakes. That sounds great. And there's a fucking Norman Osborn figure

[02:24:03] that's him just wearing a nice button down shirt with rolled up sleeves and he comes with his comfy chair with the mask on it and the chair yells at him. That's great. It's just an action figure that looks like a dad

[02:24:15] and then you just push a button and it goes like, fuck you, Norman, you come back to formula. The heart! The heart! Trying to think of other things that are happening. Never made a bone saw though. No, that's weird.

[02:24:30] I know, especially because wrestling is just a macho man. Maybe macho man had a name. Did he go over to WWF at that point? No, he never went back to WWF. Poor Bess had both licenses at the same time. You're absolutely right actually. Very weird.

[02:24:44] I always wanted a bone saw. Can we talk about the kiss? Kisses. Because that's a pretty iconic kiss, I'd say. I'm looking at you, David. It is iconic. You're looking at me because, see, I don't actually like it as a representation of realistic kissing. It makes no sense.

[02:25:00] Yeah, and upside down, then right side kiss. And of course, like Kirsten Dunst and Toby McGuire talk about, oh, it sucked, the water was going up her nose. JJ had a full page in the dossier about them just being truly the most unpleasant, complicated, difficult, technical.

[02:25:13] And Ramy the whole time is just like, yeah, but it's gonna work. He was right! But he was right, of course. When she peels the mask down, you see like, he's got fucking macho man neck. Where like, he looks- It's just weird. Yes.

[02:25:29] Like the blood vessels are popping out and everything. Because he's hanging upside down. He's probably- They're pouring water on us. Like we're kissing on one side, the other side we're exhaling. Because otherwise it's essentially like waterboarding him. I always just think though, like,

[02:25:44] that is there a sexier moment in superhero movies since then? Superhero movies today are so sexless. Yes. That kiss, as awful as I'm sure it was to film, it's legitimately like there's some chemistry there. There's some heat. Yeah, 100%.

[02:26:01] And it's just like, how sad is it that 20 years later, I don't know that we've gotten a better, like a sexier moment in a superhero movie? Well, and it's the thing that the first four, the Guff, Hingle, Spider, Batman quadrilogy get as well,

[02:26:15] which is like part of the appeal for these women is the weird costume and shit. Like the mystery guy thing, you know? Yes. That she's like turned on by the idea of Spider-Man. You get Chase Meridian, of course, is very into Batman. She's chasing him.

[02:26:29] She is chasing him and it's a Meridian. But that thing where she's like willing to admit to him, like I have a crush on somebody, it's Spider-Man. That whole scene is really great. I already mentioned it, obviously, the monologue he does. Cannot believe they pulled it. It is.

[02:26:45] And like you said, I do remember, yes, at the time, like this is the thing. The audience was like, this is too boring. Me and my teenage boy friends who went to see it all in a group. We, I'm sure, I'm a camera,

[02:26:55] you know, we probably kind of zoned out during that scene. I remember a lot of scoffing at the, you mess with one New Yorker, you mess with all of us, just because it felt very on the nose. Well, and you saw the movie in New York.

[02:27:04] I saw it in London, of course, at the Odeon Leicester Square. That's weird. Where I grew up. Where is that? London. It's like central London. Connecticut? May, it's early summer, so school wouldn't have been over yet. No, early May. No, indeed. And I mean like it's 2016,

[02:27:21] so we're fairly, I feel like at 16, we're, you know, we think we're smart. You're lads. Well, we are a bunch of lads, but you know what I feel like we're also just sort of like, well, that was inserted, you know,

[02:27:31] cause to try and, you know, it's a post 9-11 thing, right? Like we felt, we felt it as this kind of awkward, like New Yorkers. See, I saw it, Regal Union Square, fucking six months after 9-11. Even if people were groaning,

[02:27:45] they were like, come on, let's fucking give it to them. Now I watch it, I'm like, this is great. The whole movie should be this. It's so good. New Yorkers. Right, every movie like this needs to, I feel like the first Avengers

[02:27:55] is like the only one of the Marvel movies that gets a little bit of- Yeah, New Yorky. The Watts, I mean, Zach Cherry doing a flip as the Doofenshmirtz guy. In the Watts movie, right. But like the first Avengers has the like cap fighting with the cop.

[02:28:08] Yeah, and what's her pants as the waitress or whatever. They try to do a little bit of like, this is happening right in New York City. Yeah, they do. But it's just, I fucking love all of it in this. I love it more in the second half.

[02:28:21] It's sort of interesting that like, Jameson hates Spider-Man, the newspapers are printing he's a menace and the cops are after him, but all the New Yorkers, like the true New Yorkers, they get it, they know he's a good guy.

[02:28:36] You know, like I think that's a big part of that whole- It is classic Spider-Man, right? Yeah, yeah. I do like when the cop though is like, you're under arrest and he's like, I'm going up there and the cop's like, I'll be here when you get back.

[02:28:45] I'm not coming back. All right, go, go. I love that. That's really my favorite scene. You know what's funny? Like, I agree that the Green Goblin, like there is something about the voice feeling disconnected, obviously. I'm sure most of that,

[02:28:58] even though it is DeFoe in the suit had to be redone just because you can't hear anything through that fucking mask. It helps Spider-Man that Toby's voice feels disconnected. There's something that feels like a cartoon show about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That he's a little unreal.

[02:29:12] Like you don't see his jaw moving. Yeah, yes. Gestures don't perfectly line up, but there's something a little unreal and unnatural about it. Yeah. Where's the Green Goblin of course? It's very natural whenever he's on screen. My friend, Michaela, this was my 13th birthday party.

[02:29:28] My birthday was in February and I said to my parents, I'm punting my birthday party all the way to May because I want my birthday to be Spider-Man. And so all my friends' parents were like, I thought your birthday was like four months ago.

[02:29:38] And I was like, it was, I was just waiting for Spider-Man. But I went with a bunch of boys and my friend Michaela. And she always talks about that rooftop scene where it's like, what the fuck is this thing where he's like leaning up against the wall

[02:29:49] and being like, listen here Spider-Man. You know this one? We're not so different you and I. He's got that thing where he puts the elbow up. It's really a terrible pitch by him. He does an awful job being like joined forces. He's really offering nothing

[02:30:02] except like we should be insane together. I won't kill you. JJ made the tweet about it, but the like cancel culture is coming for both you and I. You gotta go to Patreon. What are some other things apart from the, you know, it ends with the Queensborough bridge

[02:30:19] and then the big fight, but is there anything else? I have like a more general thing, a really good thing that I wanted to talk about, which is the thing that I like about, well, we've said a lot of things that I like about this movie,

[02:30:31] but you know, Ramy, I've been like, cause I've been rewatching a lot of his movies, not just for this, but you know, we've got the new one coming out. And so I've been rewatching like all of his movies

[02:30:40] cause it's been so long since he's had a new movie. Yeah, sure. That's why we're doing this series. And I've been like wondering if this is a crazy cookie and you can tell me to shut up, but I'm almost wondering if we could give Sam Ramy credit

[02:30:53] in a weird way for like inventing torture porn in a very different way. Go on. Because all of his movies are about torturing Ash and getting off on that. Obviously it's not as violent. It's not as bloody. It's cartoony, right? But his whole vibe is like,

[02:31:09] isn't it fun to watch this guy go through hell? Suffer. It is funny that like- And it seems like Doctor Strange 2 is going to have that vibe. Yeah, a little bit. I'm hoping it does. It's like- But you're right. It's a little more psychological torture porn,

[02:31:23] even though with things like Evil Dead, it will become physicalized. But I mean, you just get the sense watching Evil Dead 2 and especially Army of Darkness, that he's just having, you can hear Sam Ramy laughing from behind the camera at every horrible thing he does to Bruce Campbell.

[02:31:39] And I think he had the same relationship with Tobey. I mean, he'll talk about- That energy is in this movie. Like you really, and that energy is in Spider-Man comics is the other sort of thing that I want to get at.

[02:31:49] It's like part of the fun, quote unquote, of Spider-Man is watching him be miserable. Right. He's never going to be successful. Every issue, like when I wrote that book, like you go back and reread the classic issues and it's like every issue ends the exact same way.

[02:32:02] Spider-Man wins, but it screws up Peter's life. And every last panel is Peter walking off alone into the distance with a big shadowy, like Spider-Man image watching over him. Which is essentially what this fucking movie ends. That's exactly how this movie ends.

[02:32:15] And it's just like over and over again, it's like, it is like watching this guy, I think you said like a step forward, two steps back. And even little details like watching him getting bashed by Bonesaw. Like, he gets the, and getting the crap kicked at him

[02:32:32] at the end of the movie by the Green Goblin and his costume is all shredded and he looks horrible. The one strand of the costume across the face, which they also made a toy of. Yes, that'll ravage Spider-Man. Like, there is just like,

[02:32:46] he is really like wallowing in like making this guy's life miserable, which is like to the core of Spider-Man. I mean, he's inherently a good fit for this material in terms of his themes in that way. And the other one, which I think I talked about this

[02:33:00] maybe in the Simple Plan episode, but you realize like almost all of his movies are about people who make one decision or experience like one moment that fundamentally changes them for the rest of their lives. And in almost every other one of his movies,

[02:33:12] it is that moment dooms them. Right? You play the tape, you open the book, you find the bag of money, right? Like a dark man getting burned alive, like all this shit. And then people just become monsters. They lose their humanity. They go insane, all of that.

[02:33:28] And the difference is with Spider-Man, it is the great power, great responsibility. The fact that someone says that to him, you know? And it's like, he's gotten a spider bite. He has the moment where he could become a monster and it's checked.

[02:33:39] And then there's this morality in place where it's him still fighting the universe that constantly is fucking with him and fucking him over. But he still kind of can't really let go of his fundamental goodness. There's a lot of ash like in Spider-Man.

[02:33:54] Like I never really thought about it until sort of recently. But like, even just like you're saying, the fact that they're both sort of like people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and sort of one gets bitten and one listens to a tape

[02:34:07] and they're just sort of set off on this journey that they're totally ill-equipped for in the beginning. And they didn't crave. They don't want to be a superhero. In every other Reindeer movie, it's a curse. Yes. And it's still sort of, he says it's my gift,

[02:34:22] it's my curse at the end. That's the difference. Spider-Man, he's putting the balance in. Right, right. I mean, it's just, this is the kind of stuff that's just not for the faint of heart. It's not. And if someone told you he was an ordinary guy, they lied.

[02:34:35] There's a thing that was pulled up in the dossier about like, I think when he was filming The Gift and working with Blanchett and he was like, this was such an incredible day. Do you want to say that? Oh, I can find the quote,

[02:34:48] but it's him being like, I need an actor. I need a real actor who I can talk to in this way where we have the same language and the same level of interest. I mean, rude to Freddie Prinze Jr., by the way. I don't think that guy, no.

[02:34:59] Let me find the, yeah. I learned after watching Kate perform so well for so long, I decided that's what it's all about. It's about a great actor or actress. That's what I need. That's why I went after Toby McGuire so hard, harder than I should have. Yeah.

[02:35:12] Like bringing this doorbell at midnight or I don't know. Right. But yeah, like what you say, someone I could talk to in an intimate way to make sure he understood everything I did. Right, so it was a two-prong thing where he needed someone who was like that adept,

[02:35:25] intelligent as an actor, but he also needed to find a Bruce. Like he needed to find someone who could be a collaborator for him and he could have that same sort of friendliness with. And there's a thing in one of the five billion

[02:35:35] featurettes I watched where Defoe is like, I actually like, Toby is good at the thing that I'm not good at, which is I just read the script and do the thing. And Toby is a guy who like obsessively studies the script and internalizes it and asks questions

[02:35:51] and pushes back and wants to like, and his performance feels so natural in this movie because I don't really think he's like trying to outwardly act it as much as he's just really thought about everything this guy needs to represent.

[02:36:03] But that also Ramy can speak to him in broad terms about like, this is the scene where we all get off on your misery. You know, like you have to be really pathetic here or it has to work as like a color in the palette

[02:36:14] and all that sort of stuff. And he would like sit down with Jim Norton and be like, you don't like him and you think he stinks. You think he stinks. Like smells like pee-ew. He offends your nostrils. Stink lines. Wafting around. I'm trying to think of other.

[02:36:28] Yeah, I mean, I really liked the Thanksgiving scene just because it's bizarre. Why are they having Thanksgiving at their Soho loft and not Norman's mansion or Peter's nice queen's home? Right, and it's also, this is the first time he's meeting Mary Jane. Yes.

[02:36:43] It's like the worst this could possibly go. It doesn't go great. It's clearly for the reason of they, to stage the great moment. Which is amazing where he comes in through the window upstairs and they search for him and Norman thinks, you know, like that's the reason.

[02:36:57] Is that you couldn't have him like sneaking around in Norman Osborn's mansion. Like that wouldn't make sense. Also, that amazing Ramy transition where it's like the laughing goblin face engulfed in flames. Oh, to Will Defoe like, ah! Transitions into Defoe. Sort of like heat stroking in the yellow.

[02:37:12] Some of those, like obviously the explosion. Oh, Mark, he just blows into the mortarboards. The mortarboards is so good. But like once again, this is like a scene that's like a weird comedy of manners. Yes. Most people would play it just for tension of like,

[02:37:25] I'm sniffing him out. Am I figuring out his identity? Instead you have like Aunt May knocking Norman's hand when he reaches for the candy can. I can testify that that weird comedy of Aunt May is very present in those early Zicko books.

[02:37:37] These are all things that like most people would be scared to work into the film. I do love her knocking his hand. It's very fun to see. And then his look where you're like, is he gonna murder her? Yeah. Of course he does try to murder her later.

[02:37:47] Basically, blows up her house. The carving of the turkey, him with the knife and then like, right. The thing where he steps outside and is like so fucking awful the way he talks about Mary Jane. He's like, have your fun then dump her, you know. Broom her.

[02:38:01] Broom her. Broom her. Like just fucking like get Sandman at the Apollo out to give her the fucking dance off. And when he mentions the ravening wolves. Yeah. That has to be the only movie in Hollywood history where someone talks about ravening wolves.

[02:38:15] What a fucking awful evening for Mary Jane. And by the way, they never even really got to eat. That's very frustrating. They'd already been eating. He'd leave Thanksgiving before any food was served. It's a good looking turkey. Yeah. And I love the fucking insulatory phone call

[02:38:30] that Harry does afterwards. Where he's just like such a putz. Like he doesn't know what to say. Frank is just really good. He's really good at being like a dude. Can I buy you? Like, right. I think the other, one other thing

[02:38:43] that's like the ramey part that I really like is especially like as we're talking about the ending. The intensity of like the punches. Yes. Is something that again, like I don't think you, like you really feel. Yeah, especially at the end. How hard they're supposedly hitting each other.

[02:38:59] I don't know if it's the zooms, if it's the editing. And the sound effects. The stunt work. Ramey's so fucking good at sound effects for impact. People, you know, like Peter gets punched and he flies halfway across the building. And it's just like the movies today,

[02:39:12] maybe it's because it's all CGI and it's less stunt man. Or it's more intricately choreographed and it's a lot of flipping and spinning. Like this is just like people punching each other. And there's, it's a lot of coverage. It's they shoot these things a thousand fucking ways,

[02:39:26] which means you can be less specific about it because you need it to be a little more modular for the pieces. And Ramey always shoots for the edit. Like he edits in camera. The precision. And it's like this one shot is only gonna work for this one punch.

[02:39:39] And I'll take four hours to set it up because it will matter. Yeah, even though it's a PG-13 movie, there's like an intensity of like an Evil Dead movie in like the punching. Again, two ups the ante with that, right? Like the hospital scene. Even more so, yeah.

[02:39:52] Like he's a little more free to do that stuff. There's a default line I love where he's like, you know, we weren't sure how the goblin was gonna move and I did like Muay Thai and I did all these different martial arts techniques. We were trying everything.

[02:40:04] And then ultimately it all looked a little goofy. So Green Goblin ended up being more your mean potatoes punching and kicking guy. Puncher, he's a big puncher. A mean potatoes puncher. What do you guys think of the, I feel like it was a real trope at the time.

[02:40:18] The gliders coming at Green Goblin and then we cut to like a separate shot of Willem Dafoe going, oh. And then like it kills him. We're like, they did that in a bunch of movies. What do we think of that? In this it's so effective. It's very effective.

[02:40:32] I think because he doesn't say it in a jokey way. It's truly like, oh. And I really liked him afterwards saying, don't tell Harry. That's the part I love. That's the thing that lands. Yeah. Which is again, another huge like Spider-Man-y thing

[02:40:45] where it's like he's defeated his enemy, but now he feels responsible enough that he's gonna obey the wishes of this lunatic and ruin his relationship. He should absolutely tell Harry about it. Yes, yes. And instead he ruins his relationship with his best friend and dooms like there

[02:41:00] and he's gonna become the goblin himself and yada, yada, yada. It's just like awesome. It's just funny. I feel like the, whatchamacallit? Glider? No, the, what is it? The tram. Oh, the Roosevelt Island tram. Right. Like that moment, the bridge,

[02:41:17] I feel like that was sort of being like positioned in the trailers and everything as like the big final action. Yeah, of course. Because you're also echoing the like green goblin dropping. Gwen Stacy. Are they gonna fucking do this?

[02:41:27] Why'd they flip the order of the girlfriends kind of thing? And it is like, it does then just transition to these two guys in like a pretty compact space, just exchanging blows. And then the death is so intimate. Like he gets a fucking inch away from this guy

[02:41:42] who is sadly telling him not to. What does he say right before he kills him? It's not goodbye, Peter. It's like, sayonara. No, it's not. What the, I can't remember now. I'll say the quotes page for this movie is 47 pages long. You're kidding me. Shit, I can't remember.

[02:41:59] Well, whatever. I just like the way his face changes and he's gonna kill him. I like that it's also the great thing where he says, you know, when he pretends to be Norman one last time, he says, thank God for you, Peter.

[02:42:09] And then of course, Harry repeats that at the funeral and says, thank God for you, Peter. You're the only family I have. Like, that's another really lovely like touch as well. It is. It's good stuff. It is just kind of incredible though, watching this where you're like, man,

[02:42:23] two just takes the ball and runs with it. Like it unpacks everything that this movie set up well and just expands. Where I'm like, Rosemary Harris is so good in this and you're like, right, but in like two they give her like these fucking scenes.

[02:42:34] And like J. Jones Jameson has like several bits. It's true. And Harry's really angry. Two is better than this movie in every way, but you know, this movie was proof of formula or whatever, or proof of concept. Back to formula? Back to formula.

[02:42:50] No, it's funny because nothing else is really like this, but I think the thing that everything cribbed from this is, oh, we don't have to be embarrassed. We can do the faithful version of it. You try to represent what the comic actually is

[02:43:01] and work as many of the true details as, when you're reading those fucking pitches of like the different developed versions, there's like the 1984 version of the movie was like, a guy gets bit by a spider and he turns into a spider. He turns into a tyranny.

[02:43:15] Like they wanted Spider-Man as a movie to be the fly. Right, their sort of initial idea of maybe Tobey Hooper directs it, we'll make it for 10, $20 million, right? Yeah, I mean, it's just a sign of how these things changed in the eyes of Hollywood,

[02:43:31] which is not crappy genre pictures. It's gonna be a marquee movie. It's gonna have a soundtrack that we should briefly discuss. Music from and inspired by. Now what's interesting about this is almost none of these songs are from the movie. Does Hero play over the credits? And credits.

[02:43:47] And credits, yeah. And I think the only other song that was written for this, or at least was unique to this, was the Sum 41 song, What We're All About. What We're All About. Right, which had a Spider-Man video as well. But like the other 10 tracks-

[02:44:01] Did you like Sum 41, Ben? Did you think they were all killer no filler? Yeah. I saw right through their asses. Exactly. I must've seen the music video for Fat Lip 4 Billionth. It's always on MTV or whatever. I'm just putting together now

[02:44:15] that Avril Lavigne married both of these guys. Chad Kroeger and- Derek Wibbly. Derek Wibbly. Yeah. Derek Wibbly. She must've fucking loved this album. She just, well, because now she's gonna marry Julian Casablanca, or- The guy from Alien Ant Farm. Right, yeah, the guy from Alien Ant Farm.

[02:44:33] She's gonna marry him. She's gonna go down the list. This is what I find funny about the soundtrack is that they claim it's music from and inspired by, which was a trick that these soundtracks were doing all the time now, where it's like Batman was like,

[02:44:43] we're gonna have a Seal track and a U2 track and a Smashing Pumpkins track. And maybe not all of them are in the movie, right? This, they had like two songs that were for the movie and then they just picked 10 songs that were big in like indie rock.

[02:44:54] Right, because there's a Hive song that's just- That has already come out in other albums. Right, they're just songs. It's just a mixtape. But as we were saying before we were recording, it's like, thank God that they didn't try to show these songs.

[02:45:03] Yeah, they insulate the movie from it. Can you read the full list quickly? We've got a theme from Spider-Man classic. Yeah, that's right, the cartoon show theme. Hero by Chad Kroeger featuring Josie Scott. Josie Scott from the band Saliva. Correct.

[02:45:16] I just like that it's also not a Nickelback song. It's like we picked two guys from different bands and put them on a rooftop. Well, because the Nickelback guys did not want to be a part of that song. They were embarrassed by it. Nickelback was embarrassed. Saliva.

[02:45:27] What We're All About by Sum 41 featuring Carrie King from Slayer. Oh. Learn to Crawl by Black Lab. Right, I think they picked that because it has crawl in the front. Sure, Somebody Else by Blue. Blue. Bug Bites by Alien Ant Farm.

[02:45:42] This was right, anything that had a buzzword. Something Called Blind by a Canadian rock band called Default. Okay. Something Called Bother by Corey Taylor who is from Slipknot. Okay. Shelter from Green Wheel. I truly don't know what some of this is. Then When It Started by The Strokes,

[02:45:58] which is the- So bizarre. It's the song that's not on Is This It but then got put on Is This It when they took out New York City cops post 9-11. Yes, it was on the American version, David. Yeah, it's not on the British version,

[02:46:11] which is the one I owned, which is also the one that has the, this is Spinal Tap. The Touch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I understand. Hate to Say I Told You So by The Hydes, which is truly just like a rock song of the moment. Yes, yeah.

[02:46:23] Right, all these songs were like in circulation. Invisible Man by Theory of a Dead Man. So many Canadian bands. Yeah. Pete Yorne's Undercover. So bizarre. A lot of Chad Kroger credits. If you look at the- Yeah, you're right. He wrote a lot of these songs.

[02:46:36] He wrote Invisible Man. He produced a lot of these songs. So he's kind of the mogul. It was just a Chad produced mix. He's getting your guys in here, Chad. We need 21 tracks. So yeah, they must have just said, bring in who you got.

[02:46:48] Who else do you have? Of course, Macy Gray performing My Nutmeg Fantasy, which I guess is- Tom Morello. With Tom Morello, Angie Stone and Moe's Def. I just remember even when they announced like the- And then Injected, a band called Injected had a song.

[02:47:04] When they announced the Garfield reboot and people were like, they're rebooting already? It just so happened. And I'm like, the first Spider-Man movie has Macy Gray doing a concert. It's a little, enough has changed culturally. You can reboot this. Yeah. And then Theme from Spider-Man by Aerosmith.

[02:47:20] What's going on there? It's just Aerosmith doing a cover of the cartoon Spider-Man theme. And of course, as a tribute to the film- Is there lyrics? Spider-Man. It's like Steven Tyler singing, it does whatever a spider can. Oh.

[02:47:34] As a tribute to this film, Weird Al on his album Poodle Hat has the song Ode to a Superhero where he recites the plot of this film to the tune of Piano Man. I like it. This though, we were listening before you got here Griffin

[02:47:49] to some of this album and it's truly some of the worst music. It's terrible. I remember having it. I had the album with the lenticular cover and I was like, you gotta have the Spider-Man soundtrack. And then the only thing I ever listened to

[02:48:00] was the two tracks of Elfman's score. Right, right at the end. And at some point I found out like, oh, I could just buy that. You can get that. I don't need this fucking dumb mix CD. Yeah, I'll just listen to the whole score. Now-

[02:48:12] It really puts you right back into 2002 when you put it on, it was like, wow, I am right back working at a comic book store and- And then, I mean, we'll talk about it, but like album two is mostly emo. It's got the Dashboard Confessional song

[02:48:24] and album three, the single is Snow Patrol and it's very indie rock. And apparently Kirsten Dunst had more of a hand in it. It includes a Coconut Records song by Jason Schwartzman. Yeah, anyway. The other thing we have to mention is that this film opened to $114 million.

[02:48:43] I mean, and historic. It was the first over 100. Right, yes. Which I think nerds like us were just like, can it ever happen? It can't be done. People thought Harry Potter might- Obviously James Cameron's Aquaman beat this number a couple of years later. But later, later, later.

[02:48:59] And it's within the entourage universe. No, but I remember the whispers of people being like, is fucking Harry Potter gonna make $100 million? Right, and it made like 90 something or whatever. And then we all went, I guess it's mathematically impossible. It can't be done.

[02:49:10] I guess if it couldn't be done and the fact that it not only did it, but it did it with like 14.7? $114.8 million. A per screen average of $31,000. Which is very high for a movie on- Yeah, no, it was just, it changed everything.

[02:49:27] It changed how much money a movie could make. It changed how little embarrassment you need to have over the thing you were adapting. Made $821 million globally. There was no shame in being an actor and doing a thing like this. 821 would be a very healthy total worldwide now.

[02:49:43] Today, I mean, yeah. And this is obviously 20 years ago. I mean, 100, even the opening weekend would be a great number now. Would be great. People, I mean, fucking Dumbledore's mystery barely crawled to 40. There was that funny thing for so long where it was like, Titanic was 600.

[02:49:58] And then through multiple releases, like ET and original Star Wars were both in the 400 range. This movie did like 400 on the nugget. No movie could get to 500. No, it was Dark Knight, right? Dark Knight finally did like 520 or 540 or whatever.

[02:50:13] And petered out, but there was like a run. Yeah, this was the biggest movie in a very long time. But what was the second biggest movie of this weekend, Griffin at the box office? It's a great question. Now I know Insomnia is in this five

[02:50:24] or does that come out the Attack of the Clones weekend? Yeah, it's not in. Insomnia is not in this. Okay, I'm sorry. Number two at the box office had been number one for the previous two weeks. And it's a film we've covered on this podcast on Patreon.

[02:50:36] It's a Patreon movie that we've covered in the year 2002. Speaking of Bonesaw McGraw, this film also features a wrestler. It's the Scorpion King? It's the Scorpion King. Spider-Man, Scorpion King was pretty sure he was gonna get a third week at number one, but Spider-Man knocked him off.

[02:50:57] You're like, what do you think we're gonna do in our weekend? 600 times? The Scorpion King. Did you see the Scorpion King in theater? Oh, absolutely. I saw the Scorpion King. Chuck Russell film? Yes, I definitely saw it in the theater for sure. Scorpion King's in it. He is?

[02:51:12] He is in it, above the title, yeah. Grant Heslov also in it, of course. Of course. Number three at the box office is a well-done adult drama. And we probably discussed some of these on our Scorpion King episode. It's a well-done adult drama. It's chasing lanes.

[02:51:25] It's changing lanes. Of course, Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson getting in a traffic accident. That's a movie. Is Amanda Peete? That's a summer movie. Yeah, Peete's in it, right? Yeah. Are we in the Pete zone with that one? Toni Collette, Sidney Pollack, William Hurt,

[02:51:44] Richard Jenkins, Dylan Baker. I'm going and I'm seeing names. I bet Sidney Pollack is weary and gives some tough lessons that people don't wanna hear. He probably does. I saw it in theaters and liked it. I was 16 years old. Roger Michelle?

[02:51:56] This is the kind of stuff I'm into. This one I did not see in theater. Fair enough. I saw the Scorpion King. Did you see the hit murder mystery that's number four, but not a hit actually. Murder by Numbers? Murder by Numbers with Sandra Bullock, Ryan Gosling.

[02:52:08] I don't think I've ever seen Murder by Numbers. It's not that good, but it's okay. It's not accurate or that good? Not that good. I'm not complaining about being inaccurate. I don't think it's accurate either. Yeah, it's not medically accurate anyway. I just think it's a weird, 100%.

[02:52:24] Murder by Numbers, have you seen Murder by Numbers? No, I haven't. My main knowledge of it is just that weirdly Bullock and Gosling dated after that movie. Right, even though she's quite a bit older than him. That's not what I think is weird.

[02:52:34] I don't put that judgment on me. You support that. That's your own opinion. Yeah, I mean. Number five of the box office is a, is a basically forgotten romantic dramedy starring a very major actor who's not yet, she's not yet super famous. Well, actually, yes, she is.

[02:52:54] She's an Academy Award winning actress. What? She is. That makes her pretty famous. She is famous. I forgot that this is 2002, yeah. She's won her Oscar. She's won her Oscar. It's not Halle Berry, it's not Gwenna Paltrow. No. She won a supporting actress Oscar.

[02:53:09] Is it life or something like it? It's life or something like it. Yes. With Ed Burns, Tony Shalhoub, and of course, Angelina Jolie. Never seen it. And don't know, it's one of those movies with a title where you're like, what the fuck is this about? No longer exists.

[02:53:23] I believe she's a TV reporter. Yes. Who doesn't care about other people. And she's mean to a homeless man played by Tony Shalhoub. And he's like, I place a curse upon you. He's a prophet. He'll get it in 24 hours. And it's how do I spend my last 24 hours?

[02:53:36] Right. But the big thing was her being blonde. She's blonde. She's got kind of like a Marilyn Monroe. Marilyn Monroe hair too, I can sort of visualize. Other movies in the top 10, The Rookie, Dennis Quaid pitches. Brian Cox. Good movie. Grovels. A new release, Deuces Wilde. Oh yeah.

[02:53:54] Don't know what that is. Franco. All the young men playing Reese's. Franco, Red Crow. Yes. Stephen Dorff. Stephen Dorff. Was the mirror thing. Yeah. Furlong, is Furlong in that? Frankie Muniz is a character called Scooch. Yeah, he's the kid. Balthazar Getty. All these guys.

[02:54:10] Number eight, an animated film that I went to see to see a specific trailer. This is in Britain, remember? I believe the trailer was attached to something else in America. Huh. Was it, you went to see a specific trailer? Yeah, I took my brother to see it. Nope.

[02:54:25] It wasn't Attack of the Clones trailer. Was the Attack of the Clones trailer. That's why, in Britain it was attached to Ice Age. Okay. I'm thinking like Fox, right? Ice Age still hanging in there. And David, can you scroll down and tell me

[02:54:37] what My Big Fat Greek Wedding is doing this weekend? This would have been the third weekend. My Big Fat Greek Wedding is in week three and has made $2.5 million. Everyone's happy. People cannot believe how well this movie has done. You've also got Jason X. Yes.

[02:54:51] An underrated film, in my opinion. I don't know how you feel about Jason X, Matt. I've read your Friday at 13 plus, but I can't remember it offhand. Feel like you've done one. I definitely have done one. I mean, I think we agree that Six is really good.

[02:55:02] Six is the, is the, is the filet of the Friday franchise. I agree. Panic Room, of course, what Fincher actually does. Yeah, I was going to say, it's an actual 2002 movie. Different David Capstone. And then opening this week to Rex Reed's Eternal Delight, Hollywood ending at number 11.

[02:55:21] Yeah, those are the, you got The Sweetest Thing. Remember The Sweetest Thing? Yeah, I'll say. They sing a penis song in that one. Well, I gave that a spin recently. Oh, did you? You went for the ultimates. No bueno. No, not a good movie.

[02:55:35] No, no, because that's one of those things where people were like, are we ready for a female driven raunchy comedy? Right, and we were not. It was like, you cannot have women do dirty things. Right, they can't talk about their ass. And I was like,

[02:55:46] I'd like to watch this in a post bridesmaids landscape and see if this holds up. And it's like, no, this bomb, because it was bad. It was bad. It's a very bad movie. It's really bad, unfunny and unpleasant. You can't just have women be dirty

[02:55:57] and be like, we did it. Like, I have no further work. It doesn't have to be well written. It's in that post Fairly Brothers American Pie thing where it truly feels like they have 15 scientists going like, what are the sex organs, bodily fluids?

[02:56:10] What are things that could happen? Weirdest thing about the strangest thing. She's got a tongue stud and she gives a guy a blow job. It was a blow job thing. The dick gets caught on the piercing and you're like, this all is.

[02:56:20] But that's the whole post American Pie. They were like, can we reverse engineer scenes? Yeah. Yes, it's all bad. And none of them really make sense. Based on the life of Kate Walsh, the actress. Right. And Nancy Pimento, who wrote it, Jimmy Kimmel's Winn-Benstein money replacement.

[02:56:36] Everyone thought it was going to be a hot screenwriter. She was like, I'm just going to write a movie about me and Kate Walsh hitting the bars. Going out getting fucked. And they were like, it's all right. It's a go picture. I want to love that movie.

[02:56:46] I would enjoy the shit out of it if it were even half good. And it is uncomfortable to watch. Named after a U2 song. Yeah, that's another thing. The title doesn't fit. Thomas Jane and Jason Bateman are the guys in it. I'll watch it someday. Yeah.

[02:57:01] Roger Cumble picture. All right. I mean, I like just friends. That's the other reason I watch it. I like cruel intention. Okay, yeah, what's up? It's almost been three hours. Yeah, we're done, we're done, we're done. Great, let's wrap it up. Spiderman. I was going to say Spiderman.

[02:57:13] Just do Bonesaw one more time. Yeah, let's go out on Bonesaw. But we should thank our guests. Hey buddy, I got you for three seconds. Minutes. You're going nowhere. Three minutes. I just like when he does the you're going nowhere, he like looks around Bonesaw.

[02:57:27] It just feels like he's not real. Like he can't move and annoyed, like he's an action figure or something. Right, he's got limited points of our viewers. His hair is magnificent though. Everything about him is incredible. Matt, as the person who wrote the book on Spiderman,

[02:57:40] are there any final thoughts? Any things you think this movie does well or that since you will not be on our sequel episodes, you want to say about the rest of the franchise? Yeah, how do you feel about three these days? You know, I think that three

[02:57:52] has a little bit of a bad rap. I'll be looking forward to hearing what you guys have to say. I think we all agree. I mean, it's obviously the worst of the three. It's very messy, but I think it has a lot of things to like about it.

[02:58:03] I look what I said to David and I haven't rewatched in full in a very long time. But what I said was like, it still has that thing where like when you're watching a shitty MGM golden age, Minnelli or Donen movie, where you're just like,

[02:58:16] it's got sequences that are as good as what anyone can make, even if the whole thing doesn't fucking hang together and you can feel all the studio. Maybe not the ultimate spin. Maybe not the ultimate. But it's still a spin. It takes you on a spin. Right.

[02:58:27] David exhaling loudly. I'm ordering myself some lunch. Right. You know, I have another podcast. I have to do another podcast. Yeah. I mean, I've had a long week guys. I know no one, this is coming out in a month or whatever, but just for the listeners,

[02:58:40] this story had a long week. Not for the faint of heart. David's week has not been for the faint of heart. Yeah. But yeah, no. We're all done though. Where are you going to get lunch? What are you doing for lunch?

[02:58:50] I'm going to pick up a sandwich on my way home. What kind? Probably a baglio, probably an Anthony and Sons. I suggest that we go to that new place. I can't today. Maybe another time. David, you're going to love it. I'm excited. What's the place called?

[02:59:01] Oh, you don't want to say it. I don't want to say it. He doesn't want to. I don't want to blow up its spot. It's too good. Right. We'll take it for an ultimate spin sometimes. Matt, people should buy your Spider-Man. Sure, absolutely. From amazing to spectacular. Yeah.

[02:59:15] Anything else you want to plug? Yeah. I mean, the Screen Crush is the website I work for. Absolutely. That's, I mean, that's about it. You're working on something. I'm working on a new book. But you can't talk about it.

[02:59:25] I mean, I can talk about it if you really want to talk about it. No, it's just, it's still a ways off. Are you writing a book on Venom? I wish. That would be cool. I wish I was. He's got a bad attitude. Yeah. But I like it.

[02:59:36] I'm working on a book about the other great odd couple of our time, which is Siskel and Ebert, not Venom. Not Venom and Eddie Brock. Very up Griffin Street, I would say. Yeah, absolutely. I was going to say, I feel like this movie

[02:59:46] didn't have the same level of like insane Franken foods that you so often write about. You know, it's funny that you mentioned. They were the Pop-Tarts, which were actually really good. I was just about to say, I loved Spider-Man Pop-Tarts. Wild berry Pop-Tarts.

[02:59:59] No one was paying me to eat that. Or spider berry, whatever. Spidey berry. Spidey berry. Frosted Spidey berry. Right, and they had little like sort of spider shaped parallels on the web. They were red pastry. Yeah. With blue frosting with gray webs. They were delicious. They were phenomenal.

[03:00:14] And I even think they brought them back for the first Garfield, but they should bring them back now. I think they have brought them back, but they didn't make them look as ridiculous. They were literally red blue. Sort of an ecto-cooler thing. Did you immediately get purple diarrhea

[03:00:25] after ingesting one? No, I don't. They were good. They were good. They weren't a problem. They were so good that when I sent- And that's a punishment. They weren't a problem! Matt knows from weird color diarrhea. No one was forcing me to eat these terrible things

[03:00:37] for people's amusement at this point. This was just doing it because they tasted good and I loved Spider-Man. There was this cereal that I remember being exactly the same as honeycombs. I never had the cereal. With little webs. What I remember is when I sensed

[03:00:50] that it was a month or two out from the movie, I was like, they're gonna get rid of these Spidey-Berry. So you stockpiled them. I literally went to the store and bought every box and then savored them over a period of a couple of months.

[03:01:01] There was a fucking Batman versus Superman Dawn of Justice cereal that was like, the Batman one was like strawberry peanut butter or something, and after that movie underperformed, I went to a dollar store and bought like 10 boxes. It was fucking good.

[03:01:13] Yeah, I wish I had some right now. It tastes like peanut butter and jelly. No, it tasted like Justice. The dawning. Well, it did. The dawning of Justice. At the dawn, I wake up in the morning. Great. I would love some Spidey-Berry Pop-Tarts right now. Bring it back.

[03:01:27] Bring it back. Yeah, bring them back. Matt, thank you for being here. My pleasure. And thank you all for listening. Long overdue. Long overdue. It is one of those things, look, this was a perfect movie to bring you back for, but sometimes we look at the books

[03:01:38] and we're like, Planet of the Apes? Five years ago? What the fuck are we doing? Four years, whatever it's been. I don't know, time doesn't make sense anymore. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media

[03:01:54] and helping make the podcast and a bunch of other ways. Joe Bone, Pat Rounds for our artwork. Lane Montgomery, The Great American Elf for our theme song. J.J. Birch and Nick Lariano for research. AJ McKee and Alex Barron for editing. I think that's everybody.

[03:02:07] Go to BlankCheckPod.com for links to a lot of nerdy shit. You can go to Patreon.com slash Blank Check where we are now done with The Matrix and we're doing hashtag not all Batman, all the Batman movies we haven't covered before,

[03:02:20] i.e. the ones not directed by Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan. Tune in next week for, let me check my notes here, Spiderman 2? Still for my money, I'm the best superhero movie ever. I'm excited to rewatch it. And as always, I'm out.

[03:02:42] If someone told you this was an ordinary podcast, they lied. You're going nowhere.