'Spider-Man' Sequel Filming Start Date Revealed; Jon Watts Confirmed To Return

[Prof. Warren]

I mean, but those were usually during darker periods in Spider-Man's life so he toned down the jokes a little, not something where it's a consistent thing as his quips are an essential element of Spidey's personality.

If you really look at what's going on in FFH, it actually is something of a darker period.

[Frontier]

I dunno, felt like he was quipping quite a bit to me against the bank robbers & on the boat in HC.

Yeah, but those still felt pretty remote across the entire movie.

Doesn't sound like it's much better in Far From Home.

If you really look at what's going on in FFH, it actually is something of a darker period.

Which is fair, if not a positive for Holland's Spider-Man voice.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

The lack of Spidey quipping in movies is simply a function of the fact that the movies as a rule spend more time with Peter out of costume (because actors need face-time) than with him inside one. So that doesn't allow the movies to do much with building Spidey up as a separate, more theatrical, hammy, figure than the Peter sans costume which was a major part of the comics. Not everyone can be like Ryan Reynolds who spent more time inside the mask in the two Deadpool movies.

Sure Andrew Garfield quipped...in one scene. But he doesn't quip much after that. And the movies focus on the Peter/Gwen romance doesn't allow for that to work.

Tom Holland is likewise plagued by the curse-in-disguise of "face-time" since in his case marketing hardly shows him in spidey-mask on the posters and so on. He's not playing the character so much as embodying simultaneously a target-demographic and a corporate mascot catered to the same demographic.

[Frontier]

Sure Andrew Garfield quipped...in one scene. But he doesn't quip much after that. And the movies focus on the Peter/Gwen romance doesn't allow for that to work.

He quipped a bit more in ASM2.

[Prof. Warren]

The lack of Spidey quipping in movies is simply a function of the fact that the movies as a rule spend more time with Peter out of costume (because actors need face-time) than with him inside one. So that doesn't allow the movies to do much with building Spidey up as a separate, more theatrical, hammy, figure than the Peter sans costume which was a major part of the comics.

All the Spideys have spent a heavy amount of time in costume.

The reasons that the character doesn't spend much time quipping have more to do with the differences between movies and comics than from observing any imaginary rules.

In comics, it's easy for Spidey to quip during fight scenes because the medium allows for the fight to move at a controlled pace. You can break down a fight into multiple panels wherein Spidey can wisecrack at will as he dodges his opponents punches, bullets, laser beams, etc. When that fight is happening in real time in a movie, however, it's not as easy to fire off a string of one-liners without it becoming distracting or having Spidey start to step on his own jokes.

Also, it's easier to break a mood with jokes in a movie than it is in comics. If you have say, Spider-Man in a situation where his friends are in peril and he's fighting to get them out of danger, if you have Spidey also cracking jokes while he's fighting whatever menace is putting his friends at risk, it undercuts the tension of the situation in a way that it wouldn't in comics.

Also, comics are read in solitude whereas movies are - in the theater, at least - viewed with an audience. Filmmakers don't want to invite too much laughter during moments where they either want the audience to be in suspense or be able to hear important dialogue. If Spidey is a non-stop joke machine, and the audience is roaring over moments where they need to be listening, it's going to be a distraction.

Keeping everyone in stitches in a Deadpool movie is one thing but in a Spidey movie, you have to be careful where your laughs are placed.

Tom Holland is likewise plagued by the curse-in-disguise of "face-time" since in his case marketing hardly shows him in spidey-mask on the posters and so on. He's not playing the character so much as embodying simultaneously a target-demographic and a corporate mascot catered to the same demographic.

This is literally just a string of nonsense.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

He quipped a bit more in ASM2.

I guess. I don't remember that part of that movie very well.

All the Spideys have spent a heavy amount of time in costume.

If by costume, you mean full costume including the mask, then not so much. In Spider-Man 1, the first half of the film is the origin, and we get the costume only in the second half. And yeah we see the costume in action a lot there, but then the finale in the warehouse has goblin bomb Peter's face and half of it gets ripped off. Peter is maskless for the final part of the train scene in Spider-Man 2 (which again was obviously done to give a close-up of Tobey's face for this big emotional scene if it makes zero sense for him to remove his mask on a plot/character/scene level) and also the finale at the warehouse where he fights Dr. Octopus. He's also maskless for the finale of Spider-Man 3. You see similar stuff in the Garfield movies. Tom Holland spends almost every scene in IW and Endgame without his mask. Virtually the entire final battle in Endgame doesn't have him with a mask at all.

In comics, it's easy for Spidey to quip during fight scenes because the medium allows for the fight to move at a controlled pace. You can break down a fight into multiple panels wherein Spidey can wisecrack at will as he dodges his opponents punches, bullets, laser beams, etc. When that fight is happening in real time in a movie, however, it's not as easy to fire off a string of one-liners without it becoming distracting or having Spidey start to step on his own jokes.

The riposte to that is that you have many cartoons, games and so on that do have the wisecracking side of Spider-Man and do it faithfully. The reason being that in cartoons and games, since they are animations, you have less incentive to show the guy behind the mask than in live-action where you paid a lot for a real human to play that character. Likewise, in the MCU you have other characters who quip a lot, Thor since Ragnarok, Iron Man and all the Guardians.

The issue is that for a lot of reasons Sony aren't fully committing to Peter and Spider-Man as separate public figures. Hence the fact that every bad guy always ends up knowing Peter's identity or always inventing/fabricating some personal connection to Peter which again disincentivizes them knowing Spider-Man as Spider-Man.

[Rob London]

And Mysterio fans will not be disappointed. Gyllenhaal's Quentin Beck may actually be my favorite depiction of a Spidey villain to date. And there's been some great ones, so that's saying something.

Man, you were not kidding. Gyllenhaal nails the character, and the visual effects associated with him are stunning - his big showcase scene was jaw-dropping.

[Kevinroc]

And Mysterio fans will not be disappointed. Gyllenhaal's Quentin Beck may actually be my favorite depiction of a Spidey villain to date. And there's been some great ones, so that's saying something.

This is very true. I watched that first spectacular Mysterio fight and said to myself that this was why I wanted him to be the villain in a Spidey film. I thought special FX had finally gotten to a point where he could be portrayed accurately in a film, and he was.

[Prof. Warren]

The riposte to that is that you have many cartoons, games and so on that do have the wisecracking side of Spider-Man and do it faithfully. The reason being that in cartoons and games, since they are animations, you have less incentive to show the guy behind the mask than in live-action where you paid a lot for a real human to play that character. Likewise, in the MCU you have other characters who quip a lot, Thor since Ragnarok, Iron Man and all the Guardians.

It's also true that cartoons, like comics, are usually enjoyed in a one on one situation, without a theater full of people laughing over lines.

Also, I feel that - given the nature of the medium - people are more accepting of a cartoon character unleashing a string of wisecracks in any given situation than they would be with a real life person with real peril going on around them.

When characters like Thor or Star Lord quip, it's usually not in the heat of battle but in moments of downtime.

I will say that I do wish filmmakers could find a better way to integrate Spidey's humor into the live action movies but I think the reasons why that hasn't been faithfully translated from the comics are complex and are kind of baked into the medium itself. With three filmmakers over three incarnations of the franchise at this point, the fact that none of them have really successfully cracked that code - even while doing many other things very well - says something.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

It's also true that cartoons, like comics, are usually enjoyed in a one on one situation, without a theater full of people laughing over lines.

Those cartoons hardly have a laugh track which actual sitcoms do, or at least did (I believe that's phased out recently). And you have many action movies such as the Bad Boys movies where characters quip between bullets and fighting, you have Quentin Tarantino movies where you have quips in action and fight scenes, and you know James Bond movies where you do have humor in the fight scenes.

When characters like Thor or Star Lord quip, it's usually not in the heat of battle but in moments of downtime.

There's a lot of quips from Star-lord in the opening of Guardians 2, and Thor quips at the end of IW, where he meets Steve at Wakanda and notes he has copied his look (the beard and all).

I will say that I do wish filmmakers could find a better way to integrate Spidey's humor into the live action movies but I think the reasons why that hasn't been faithfully translated from the comics are complex and are kind of baked into the medium itself. With three filmmakers over three incarnations of the franchise at this point, the fact that none of them have really successfully cracked that code - even while doing many other things very well - says something.

The real issue is that Peter Parker in the comics talks to himself via captions and so on. He's a very introverted character and his sense of humor comes from that, his constant thought bubbles in the classic era and the captions in the modern one. If we didn't have access to his thoughts, the way he quips as Spider-Man and the way he mostly restrains himself as Peter never comes out to readers. We don't get that, yeah Spider-Man allows Peter to tell the world what he really thinks. In live-action the way to do that is a voiceover and while voiceovers can be and are done very well, there's an instinctive distrust towards doing that in a mainstream film, not helped by bad books on screenwriting by Robert McKee and others which tell people to avoid it. Someone like Martin Scorsese uses voiceover all the time like in Wolf of Wall Street, and even Tarantino uses it, but aside from Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool movies we haven't seen it been done well in superhero movies. In many ways, Reynolds' Deadpool movies are how I imagine a Spider-Man adaptation, actor isn't afraid to forego facetime and put on a voice, and mostly deliver a mainly vocal performance...and if things were different, Reynolds would have made a fine Peter Parker, at least an older Peter Parker (say the Peter of Kraven's Last Hunt and after that). I mean he even looks like the Peter of the comics (say JRJR's Peter from the JMS era) in some photo stills. I remember this movie he did, Definitely Maybe and came out thinking that Reynolds and Isla Fisher would make a fine Peter/MJ. But of course Reynolds is an actor with a distinct voice, his voice is recognizably him, and there aren't too many actors with that quality. Certainly not Tobey, Andrew and Tom.

In Sam Raimi's movies, Tobey Maguire narrates at the start and end of each film but we don't get his voiceover throughout the film as a running commentary which is what we really need. And that's why Tobey's Peter comes across, especially in 1 and 2, as a really sad guy. You get a sense in Spider-Man 1 that he's happier as Spider-Man but since we don't see Spidey much in ''2'' that dies down a bit. In the MCU movies, hey introduced the AI stuff to give someone Peter to talk to, and they add in Ned and others who know Peter to bounce off and voice thoughts. The result, you destroy the introspective Peter Parker of the comics and most of the humor comes from Tom Holland's ability to deliver bug-eyed responses and react to the cast, which suits his main strength as a character actor but doesn't make him a lead.

[H-E-D]

I think FFH is without a doubt the best MCU Spidey has ever been. Homecoming really underwhelmed me but I loved every second of this.

[Celgress]

I think FFH is without a doubt the best MCU Spidey has ever been. Homecoming really underwhelmed me but I loved every second of this.

I feel exactly the opposite. Homecoming was passable while I found FFH to be an extremely formulaic superhero movie. To each their own I suppose.

[Vortex85]

I felt as an MCU movie is was decent, but a Spider-Man movie is was very poor. Probably tied with Spider-Man 3 as my least favorite.

[JS4P]

He quipped a bit more in ASM2.

The quipping in ASM2 made him look like a sociopath. He was quipping with the Rhino instead of stopping/arresting him while Rhino was responsible for killing/injuring various people --seriously, there are Youtubes about how many people die/get injured because Spidey had to get some quipping in. And that's the issue. Some quipping is fine, doing quipping instead of actually doing the things to stop the horrible people, makes you the worst.

I haven't seen FFH yet, but I thought the right balance was met in Homecoming of quipping. Like all his commentary when he was going through the suburbs trying to the van, comes to mind. But without me wondering if Peter cared more about making a quippy remark, than human life.

[Frontier]

The quipping in ASM2 made him look like a sociopath. He was quipping with the Rhino instead of stopping/arresting him while Rhino was responsible for killing/injuring various people --seriously, there are Youtubes about how many people die/get injured because Spidey had to get some quipping in. And that's the issue. Some quipping is fine, doing quipping instead of actually doing the things to stop the horrible people, makes you the worst.

I don't think that's any different from how many MCU heroes quip or make jokes even in end of the world scenarios. Like, I really don't think it's a common issue that Spider-Man's quips get in the way of him doing his job since he does them while doing his job.

I haven't seen FFH yet, but I thought the right balance was met in Homecoming of quipping. Like all his commentary when he was going through the suburbs trying to the van, comes to mind. But without me wondering if Peter cared more about making a quippy remark, than human life.

I haven't re-watched the movie but to me in those scenes it came off more like babbling then actual quipping.

Like, in hindsight the joke in Civil War about him talking more then the average person does in that fight didn't really make much sense in the context of the MCU with how quippy fights usually end up being. And he wasn't even quipping at them during that fight, mostly just babbling.