Movie Trivia: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (2012)

Trivia: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

In early January 2010, Sony announced that they cancelled their idea of making "Spider-Man 4" with director Sam Raimi and actor Tobey Maguire, who started their work together on Spider-Man, and instead decided to re-boot the Spider-Man franchise with a new story and crew. 

This is the first "Spider-Man" film to not feature Spider-Man's perennial love interest Mary-Jane Watson (in the original three films played by Kirsten Dunst). Instead, Peter Parker's original girlfriend Gwen Stacy appears.

In this film Spider-Man uses artificial devices to shoot webs, inspired from the original comics where he possessed similar devices for his webbing (only later would he gain his more famous superhuman ability to shoot webs). Marc Webb explained the web-shooters were a creative decision to showcase Peter's intellect: "We wanted to emphasize that these are things that Peter Parker made and that he is special himself even if he feels like he's an outsider." 

When Sam Raimi was going to direct Spider-Man 4, he originally wanted to include only one villain - Dylan Baker as Dr. Curt Connors, so that he could finally become the Lizard. Baker was going to return for "Spider-Man 4", but Raimi apparently was told by Sony not to include the Lizard as the villain because the studio were saving The Lizard for the villain in a script written by Vanderbilt that had no references to the same continuity as Raimi's (which eventually became The Amazing Spider-Man). This was because they were unsure as to whether or not Raimi would still be attached to the franchise at that point. With those orders, Raimi decided to include the Vulture, but reports say that Sony did not want the Vulture as the main villain because they felt he wasn't a challenging or popular enough villain for Spider-Man to fight with and the studio thought they'd have too many unsold Vulture toys on shelves when the film was released. These disagreements ultimately led Sam Raimi to leave the project. Ironically, this film's main antagonist is the Lizard. 

Marc Webb describes the theme of the movie as "the missing piece within all of us: Peter has no parents, and he fills that void with Spider-Man. Curt is not as strong as Spider-Man on the inside, but he wants to get back his arm and fill that void, and essentially he becomes a big bully." 

On selecting Andrew Garfield to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man, director Marc Webb said, "Though his name may be new to many, those who know this young actor's work understand his extraordinary talents. He has a rare combination of intelligence, wit, and humanity. Mark my words, you will love Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker." 

Before Andrew Garfield was announced for the lead part, Taylor Lautner, Josh Hutcherson, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Logan Lerman, Robert Pattinson, Jamie Bell, Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Angarano, Michael Cera, Alden Ehrenreich, Zac Efron, Aaron Johnson, Xavier Samuel, Jim Sturgess and Anton Yelchin were also considered to play the lead role. 

Michael Fassbender was originally considered for the role of Dr Curt Connors; he eventually went on to play Magneto in X-Men: First Class.

Ashley Greene, Mia Wasikowska, Scout Taylor-Compton Teresa Palmer, Amber Heard,Dianna Agron, Brooklyn Decker, Imogen Poots, Lindsay Lohan, Emma Roberts, Emily Browning, Lily Collins, Anna Kendrick, Ophelia Lovibond, Sara Paxton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Georgina Haig, Hilary Duff and Dominique McElligott were considered for the role of Gwen Stacy, but were beaten out by Emma Stone. 

This film marks the first time Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans) becomes The Lizard on film. Although Curt Connors appeared in the original Sam Raimi films, played by Dylan Baker, the character never became the Lizard despite some strong hints. 

Originally the Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson had a place in the script and J.K. Simmons was going to reprise the role from the Raimi films; later John Slattery (I)', Sam Elliott and R. Lee Ermey were considered for the role. However with the shift of the focus to high school the newspaper angle was removed from the script 

Rhys Ifans rejected his stunt doubles, and insisted on performing all his own stunts as the Lizard. 

For his role as the Lizard, Rhys Ifans wore a special motion-capture suit: "I had a green suit on, and then this cardboard head, and these big claws. It was the most fucking insane thing I'd ever done..." 

Anne Hathaway, who was going to star in this film as Felicia Hardy (Black Cat), went on to star in The Dark Knight Rises as Selina Kyle (Catwoman). 

When first wearing the Spider-Man costume Andrew Garfield admitted to shedding tears. 

In this film Captain George Stacy is strongly opposed to Spiderman's activities, and Gwen Stacy is both aware and supportive of Peter Parker's role as Spiderman. This is in stark contrast to the comics, where George Stacy was a strong supporter of Spiderman, and confessed on his death bed that he was aware of Peter's identity, while Gwen Stacy blamed Spiderman for her father's death, and as such Peter never informed her of his identity. 

To prepare for his role as Spider-Man, Andrew Garfield studied the movements of spiders and tried to incorporate them as much as he could: "Parker is a boy/spider in terms of how he moves, and not just in the suit." 

According to costume designer Kym Barrett, the Spider-Man costume was specially designed to resemble an acrobat costume: "We wanted a design that would make the body longer and more lithe, someone incredibly agile; the legs of the spider-symbol on the chest were used to emphasize that." 

While filming in New York the crew built a whole rig hundreds of feet long over Riverside Drive in Harlem. 

It was a creative decision by the filmmakers to have most of the stunts performed practically on rigs by actors/stuntmen, rather than extensively use CGI animation. Marc Webb explained they wanted to make the film more physical and thus more realistic. While filming in New York the crew built a whole rig hundreds of feet long over Riverside Drive in Harlem, and Andy Armstrong built a car rig with a series of wires to help with VFX which required an incredible wealth of acrobatics 

Sam Raimi was originally going to direct "Spider-Man 4", with cast members Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane Watson), Rosemary Harris(May Parker), J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson), Bill Nunn (Joe "Robbie" Robertson), Bryce Dallas Howard (Gwen Stacy), James Cromwell (Captain George Stacy), and Dylan Baker(Dr. Curt Connors) all signed on to reprise their roles. Tobey Maguire would've received the most money out of the returning cast members, making $50 million to do not only a fourth "Spider-Man", but also a fifth. However, when Raimi and Sony had creative problems with how they wanted the story to be told, Raimi quit the project and Maguire left with him. Shortly after, Sony announced that the next "Spider-Man" movie would be a reboot for the franchise. 

When Sam Raimi was going to direct Spider-Man 4, John Malkovich was hired to portray the new antagonist Adrian Toomes/the Vulture and Anne Hathaway was reportedly hired to be Felicia Hardy (who would have been the Vulture's daughter and she would become the Vulturess rather than her comic alias the Black Cat). However, Raimi had problems with the script, which is rumored to have included Peter and Mary Jane married and welcoming a baby girl, Spider-Man intentionally murdering the Vulture in the final battle, and at the finale Peter Parker throw his Spider-Man identity in the garbage that would lead into the events of the fifth film where Peter again dons the Spider-Man identity. Although Raimi hired Alvin Sargent to re-write the script, he still didn't like the story that was planned and he decided not to make Spider-Man 4. 

Source: IMDb