Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy is very beloved by many fans and is still talked about to this day. When the reboot was announced; fans were on the defensive side and they were right to be. Two movies in; Sony had to reboot Spider-Man AGAIN. This time he’s been rebooted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Majority of fans are pleased by this and the new direction they are taking the character. However, a good chunk of fans wonder what the fourth installment to the original trilogy would be like.
Well, you may not have too wonder anymore. There is a Kickstarter for Spider-Man 4. A fan film being made by dedicated fans. I recently had the opportunity too interview one of the writers, Bryn C. Jones.
Can you tell us more about the team?
“The team making this are all just a bunch of fans pooling their resources and time out of their love for Spider-Man to make this project happen. We have everything from talented music composers like William McCarthy and artists like Jack Socal and Dalton Barrett in the art department, to talented costume designers/builders that are professional Seattle cosplayers helping to make sure the costumes meet the standard that the Raimi films set, and so much more.
On the technical side we have VFX Heroes now handling our CGI department and we have a wide range of people I have worked with before from video production classes and some professional film shoots I’ve had the pleasure of working on. In the end we’re all just a bunch of fans with a wide array of combined talents who think we can make something fun! both for ourselves and anyone else who loves Spider-Man.”
What sparked the motivation behind this fan film?
“Harley and I had been planning to make a Spider-Man fan film for a long time now. After seeing some video essays online about the original trilogy and some videos about the cancelled original Spider-Man 4, I figured that would be an awesome project to make, and he agreed!”
How long has this fan film been in production?
“We’ve been working on writing / assembling a cast and crew since September.”
What creative changes will you be making to the established characters?
“We aren’t making many changes to the established characters, almost everything happening in the script is something the characters went through in either the original line or the ultimate comics, the big change we’ve made both from the comics and from Raimi’s original plan is we’ve added Kingpin in, in the original comics Adrian Toomes’ (Vulture) business partner is who his anger is based at and who his rampage across New York is trying to hurt, in some variations it’s changed to where he works for Oscorp, since Osborne is dead in this universe he works for Fisk at the start.”
What emotional impact do you want Spider-Man 4 to have on the fans?
“Emotionally we just want the fans to have fun and remember watching the original trilogy, we love the tone those films had where they just mixed deep drama with lighthearted comedy all the time, and we are doing everything we can to recapture that and really just give a good nostalgic feeling to our fans.”
To you, what is the most important aspect of a Spider-Man story?
“The most important aspect to me of a Spider-Man story is Peter Parker and the relationships he has with his friends, his enemies, everyone. All the Raimi films it boils down to Peter’s life being changed or affected in some way by him being Spider-Man, the death of his uncle, his best friend’s father being his sworn enemy, missing MJ’s play because of a robbery. And it’s important to us we stick to that.”
The original movies are considered campy with a slight of cheesiness like the golden age of comics. Do you plan to continue that or ground the fan film more into reality?
“Yes, we plan on keeping the cheesy factor of the originals. Though the trilogy is definitely a good mix of drama, heartfelt moments, and cheesy humor. It all goes together really well with Spider-Man and it’s not a formula we’d want to change.”
It has a lot of villains in it. Which was a major flaw in Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2? How do you plan to combatant that?
“We honestly don’t have as many villains as you’d think. As we’ve stated everywhere Prowler / Shocker / Rhino / Stilt Man / Mysterio only make cameos at the beginning in a crime montage like how Raimi originally wanted to open the film. The main villain is Vulture, Lizard is a side villain, and Kingpin. He does play a big role is a more looming threat like he is in a lot of Spider-Man comics.
Having multiple villains isn’t a problem as long as it all flows together well and everything is connected. In our opinion the reason the villains in Spider-Man 3 didn’t work well is Harry is just gone for half the film. Venom was forced in there by Avi Arad and didn’t even show up until the very last scene. In the script we’ve written everything flows together, Lizard, Vulture, Kingpin, Spider-Man, and Black Cat. Are all connected in some way or another so none of them really get tossed aside for a long period of time to focus on the others.”
If Sam Raimi watched this fan film, what emotions do you want him to feel?
“While I highly doubt Sam Raimi would ever see our film. If he did at the very least I hope he’d be at least amused. That a bunch of fans loved his work that much.”
Is there plans for future installments or a one time deal?
“I mean we’ve joked about doing a 5 and 6 but realistically that probably wouldn’t happen. Maybe if this film does amazingly well: a couple years down the line if we don’t have anything going on we’d consider doing a 5th one.”
If you would love too see this film come life, then head to their Kickstarter and help them out!
