I have been meaning to put together a post regarding Spiderman 3 with some "inside info" for quite some time now. As such, the content of this post may already be common knowledge.
I loved the first two Spiderman movies. I thought Toby McGuire was a great Peter Parker. I loved the stories. I loved the characters. I loved the special effects. When I first heard about Spiderman 3 and that Venom would be involved, I naturally got excited. Especially after seeing the firt teaser with Spiderman looking at his reflection and seeing Venom. However, as more and more info regarding the movie became available, my excitement began to diminish. I started to worry that there were too many plot lines being packed into one movie and ultimately all plot lines would be under developed and the overall movie would suffer.
A group of friends and I were talking with one our friends who has spent the last year and a half working on Spiderman 3 and my fears were confirmed. The essence of the conversation was that the movie would be visually spectacular but the story was woefully undeveloped. Supposedly, the director, Sam Raimi, was in love with the story behind Sandman and thought that the story of Venom was not compelling enough. Therefore, he decided to dump millions and millions of dollars into the development of Sandman. After months and months of discussion with the other producers and Stan Lee, Raimi finally realized that Venom was in fact a very compelling character and wanted to incorporate him into the movie. However, Raimi still loved Sandman and didn't want to "waste" all the time, effort, and money put into developing Sandman so the role was not removed. Sunk cost anybody?
The net effect of the Sandman/Venom "conflict" is a story with two villains who are sufficiently compelling to merit their own movie resulting in underdevelopment of both characters. The viewers get cheated and end up with another version of Lex Luthor in Superman Returns (which, by the way, I am still upset about). As if this wasn't enough, Raimi decided to throw in an additional villain which is worthy of its own movie - The Green Goblin/Harry.
Why do directors/writers/producers feel the need to fit this all into a single film? Give me a 90-110 minute film that sufficiently addresses each character and the associated story. Give me characters with depth and stories with meaning. I don't need a four hour epic that is not so epic because everything is glossed over in an attempt to leave nothing out. Why the rush? Is Spiderman not a viable franchise? Is Spiderman 3 the last of the series? I wouldn't think so based on box office results of the first two installments. Come on.
Hopefully, now that my expectations are lowered, Spiderman 3 will be pleasantly surprising. At the worst, I will be able to enjoy some sweet special effects and a few visually appealing scenes. When it comes down to it, I will still be waiting in line outside the theater on opening night.
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