Let it never be said that The Amazing Spider-Man 2 fails to get audiences to react. After I saw the film I was inspired to write a post criticizing all of Hollywood for the bloated, overlong nature of their mediocrity. Then our Stake Podcast dedicated an episode to that very subject.
So my ears perked up when I saw Andrew Garfield addressing the criticism the film received over at The Daily Beast. Here is Garfield on why The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ended up being just terrible:
I read a lot of the reactions from people and I had to stop because I could feel I was getting away from how I actually felt about it. For me, I read the script that Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci] wrote, and I genuinely loved it. There was this thread running through it. I think what happened was, through the pre-production, production, and post-production, when you have something that works as a whole, and then you start removing portions of it—because there was even more of it than was in the final cut, and everything was related. Once you start removing things and saying, “No, that doesn’t work,” then the thread is broken, and it’s hard to go with the flow of the story. Certain people at the studio had problems with certain parts of it, and ultimately the studio is the final say in those movies because they’re the tentpoles, so you have to answer to those people.
There are two interesting nuggets here, I think
First, the studio is an easy target for creative failure. Sony probably did screw with this movie. It is disjointed in a way that carries that ‘studio interference’ feeling. Too many characters, too little direction. No development for the female lead. I believe Garfield when he says this. But either way, blaming anonymous suits from the studio for a bad final product is pretty safe territory.
Second, Garfield tells us that the solution to this failure would have been to film original script written by Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci. About this wonderful script, Garfield says, “there was even more of it than was in the final cut.” More? MORE!
It’s hard to imagine that would have solved the problem.
Your movies are too damn long, Hollywood.
