Does Spider-Man Really Need a Reboot?

Image from source, Bam! Kapow!

What the heck is so difficult about making superhero movies? There are countless stories told over spans of forty to seventy years in some cases, and still the movie studios seem clueless. For every good superhero movie, there are several bad ones. For every strong first movie, there are strings of bad sequels. For every one that gets to the screen, there are countless discarded treatments, and more cancelled concepts.

Marvel Comics--much to this DC Comics fan's chagrin--seemed to be on a roll. They had critical and/or popular success with X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and Iron Man. Some were middling or failures, like The Hulk, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Electra, Wolverine, and the many versions of The Punisher. But when it comes to bringing product to the screen, Marvel has been riding high.

DC hasn't fared as well. They've struck popular and critical gold with Batman lately (particularly with The Dark Knight), but not much else. They utterly failed with Catwoman. Didn't do so well with Constantine. I guess Watchmen did all right, but I didn't much care for it. But this isn't exactly their top-shelf stuff, excepting Batman. Where are the long promised Shazam!, The Metal Men, Wonder Woman, Superman vs. Batman, Justice League of America, Plastic Man and The Flash?

Superman Returns came out in 2006, continuing the basic storyline of Superman: The Movie and Superman II. I loved it, but am in the minority. The lukewarm response has parked the franchise in purgatory, with rumors of a "reboot." A reboot takes the same or similar characters, and starts over, with a different cast, different continuity and usually different people behind the scenes. It can re-energize a franchise (see Batman) or can make little difference (The Incredible Hulk). And it runs the risk of alienating fans of the previous franchise. The time to reboot Superman would have been before the last movie, if they were going to do it.

Now comes word of a Spider-Man reboot. Why? This franchise has all come out in the last 10 years. The cast is still in an age range that works. The third movie underwhelmed, but for reasons that had nothing to do with the creative team (other than the writer). The problem with Spider-Man 3 is the same one that plagued the Michael Keaton/Val Kilmer/George Clooney Batman series: just too damned much. Too many characters, particularly, villains thrown into one big movie blender. Rather than a reboot, a simple paring back would have sufficed.

The strange thing about rebooting Spider-Man is that there has been a recent attempt to tie together these Marvel movies into the same universe with little cameos at the end. Doesn't making a whole new version kind of screw that up? For some interesting reading, Google around (or Wikipedia around) for some behind the scenes stuff about the making of some of these movies. Here's one to get you started, for the Superman series. It's stunning how many talented people can have so many stupid ideas. How hard can it really be to make a good superhero movie?

[Excerpt]

Spider-Man Movies Get The Reboot

Peter Parker is going back to high school when the next Spider-Man hits theaters in the summer of 2012. Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced today they are moving forward with a film based on a script by James Vanderbilt that focuses on a teenager grappling with both contemporary human problems and amazing super-human crises. . .

Read more at: Bam! Kapow!