Andrew Garfield On TASM: "We Haven't Gone For Gritty"

Marc Webb's new Spider-Man chats to Total Film about taking on the iconic role, and says that despite what many assumed from the trailer, we are not necessarily in for a darker take on the story..

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By Mark "RorMachine" Cassidy - 2/21/2012
We have already heard quite a lot from Garfield, and most other people associated with Marc Webb's upcoming Spidey reboot. But here he addresses the tone of the movie, and suggests that despite our preconceptions that this would be a darker, grittier story akin to what Christopher Nolan did with his take on The Dark Knight, that's not strictly true. Spider-Man, he says, is nothing like Batman..



"We haven't gone for gritty, we've gone for grounded. If we try and make Batman, we'll fail. The new Batman is it's own thing - and also in terms of tone, Spider-Man is nothing like that character. Spider-Man is witty, Spider-Man is a kid, Spider-Man wants to have fun, he's a teenager and he needs to go through first love and piss around"


Garfield also reiterates his passion for the character, and sounds very determined to do Spidey justice: "I don't give a [frick] about making money and all that: I care about the character being served, being treated with respect"

Which is great of course, but we know there are those involved with the movie that DO give a [frick] about making money, and clearly expect it to since a sequel is already greenlit for a Summer 2014 release. As far as that goes Producer Matt Tolmach teases that this first film will introduce a few things that will go unanswered until the sequel..

"The movie's a full meal, but there are things and mysteries that won't get resolved until the next movie. I mean, there's too much to look at, in a good way!"


For more be sure to check out the new issue of Total Film, out now.









Source: Total Film Magazine
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RexBlazer1 - 2/21/2012, 6:47 AM
Well, not every story has to be grim and gritty. It can still be good without those.
StrangerX - 2/21/2012, 6:52 AM
The tone seems just right.
DCnerd46 - 2/21/2012, 6:55 AM
He's absolutely right. I think the Batman movies are forgetting that they're allowed to be dark, gritty, AND fun. But the aim to be both fun and grounded seems to be a perfect fit for Spidey.
comicbookjerk - 2/21/2012, 7:00 AM
I hated the idea of this movie until I seen the trailer in 3d now Im so friggin excited for it I can't stand it
Zelikee1 - 2/21/2012, 7:05 AM
Every interview Andrew Garfield has just cements my belief that he is the right person to be playing Spider-man. He totally understands these characters. And what he just said up there, THAT was awesome.
plasticman - 2/21/2012, 7:08 AM
Maybe Sinestro will be in the sequel...oh! wrong character!

As long as it isn't a teen love story in the way of Twilight then I am excited. I like actors like this that know that they want to do justice for the character. They tend to be the ones that we eventually associate the role with because they have provided the best preformances. For example: Christopher Reeves, Roberty Downey Jr, Bill Bixby, and Kevin Conroy to name a few.
ThaMessenger07 - 2/21/2012, 7:08 AM
Yes Gusto, He means Drinking....
InFamouslyCool - 2/21/2012, 7:19 AM
I prefer grim and gritty.
Rango - 2/21/2012, 7:27 AM
a Nolanised Spider-man....Its too dark and gritty from the trailers
prettynuclear2 - 2/21/2012, 7:43 AM
well tobey was a complete wimp in the other movies. why would they make him look cool.
cookfreeordie - 2/21/2012, 7:43 AM
@just1superguy

All you've proven to me is that Maguire was far to fat to be Spiderman.
ninjacarm - 2/21/2012, 7:48 AM
Great article. Mr. Garfield has so much foresight and has a handle on things its scary and exciting.

Bravo Garfield, bravo.

Suck it haters.
MovieMann - 2/21/2012, 7:53 AM
looking at Just1Superguy's picture above, I just realized how much I don't like Tobey as Spiderman.
ThreeBigTacos - 2/21/2012, 7:56 AM
Just1Superguy: you do know that second poster isn't an official poster for TASM right?
Spidey91 - 2/21/2012, 7:57 AM
Spiderman is not "realistic": he crawls walls,has spider-sense and incredible agility,not to mention the hi-tech web-shooters.
but I think "grounded" means that the world around him reacts in a realistic way to his presence. for example,the police is going on a man-hunt for this guy,as you would expect,because the police sees him as a threat.
same with Batman in BB,the police was trying to capture him.
and same with the upcoming Man of Steel,with the military behind Superman's a** because he's a freakin' alien.
KingPatel - 2/21/2012, 7:57 AM
I love this guy's passion for Spider-Man, he's gonna be great. Hopefully the story is amazing as well.
dahamma - 2/21/2012, 8:00 AM
@Just1Superguy I agree with ya man. Raimi SPidey minus spiderman 3 was just flat out awesome. Im still skeptical about this new one, its more dark and...emo lol
Rorschachfan09 - 2/21/2012, 8:03 AM
@just1superguy

You're kidding right? There were more quips and jokes in the 2 minute trailer for TASM than in the whole 3 Raimi films. All Maguire did for 3 movies was cry like a bitch. Raimis films were good (except SM3) but I remember watching them as a youngster thinking "Why isnt Spidey making jokes?" "Why isnt mary jane hot?" "Why is spidey crying all the god damn time?". Maguires Peter Parker was (dare I say it) 'emo' compared to Garfield.
PaulRom - 2/21/2012, 8:14 AM
"I don't give a [frick] about making money and all that: I care about the character being served, being treated with respect"
OK. Now I'm 100% confident that he'll be to Spidey what RDJ was to Iron Man, Hemsworth to Thor, Bale to Batman, etc.
MisterNiceGuy - 2/21/2012, 8:36 AM
@paulrom, you mean michael keaton right? ..
PaulRom - 2/21/2012, 8:49 AM
@MisterNiceGuy I personally prefer Bale (especially as Bruce Wayne), but Keaton did have a better Batvoice.
jimoakley666 - 2/21/2012, 9:04 AM
Good. Spider-Man is supposed to be fun. Really looking forward to this. Looks very good so far.
Chewtoy - 2/21/2012, 9:05 AM
Whatever the actual tone of the film, the trailer could hardly have been more dark and gritty. It was a somber, joyless, depressing thing to me. I know some fans absolutely love that kind of thing, but it gave me serious doubts about this flick.
thewolfx - 2/21/2012, 9:17 AM
boy for a guy with so much passion for spdiey he sure let that shitty costume slip through the cracks ...


but hopefully what andrew says is true , even though his posters dont add up


InTylerWeTrust - 2/21/2012, 9:22 AM
I guess ignoring a lead actor's comments in order to continue with spewing stupid, predictable BS is the norm now. Should I be surprised?
NeoBaggins - 2/21/2012, 9:37 AM
"If we try and make Batman, we'll fail."-Garfield

I agree.
Toasty - 2/21/2012, 9:57 AM
I don't mind them taking a different route than other movies as long as we don't get more of the campy out of place scenes like that "no bag, no gwen" rubbish.
breakUbatman - 2/21/2012, 10:16 AM
So many of you guys have been blinded by an actors passion for a character again.

Two words - Hugh Jackman.

xXkryptoniteXx - 2/21/2012, 10:16 AM
Lmao why do fans hate there comics becoming grounded as possible in a LIVE action movie??? It's a LIVE action movie that's suppose to fit our world, SUPPOSE. Hence why it's grounded as possible, x1, x2, xmen first class, batman begins and the dark knight are all grounded as possible. Even blade 1&2. Why are they successful? Because it attract more audience to see it, not just the comic fans. Get that in your heads, if you want the why it is in the comics, stick with cartoons and when you say the story has to be great, guess what the story that your asking for is aiming at older audience, mature.

I passed on the new spiderman but when they said it's going to be grounded, I'm up for it. Sure it has some fantasy elements to it but can't you say that to any sci fi action movies??? Take lord of the rings, was it campy??? Could they have made it like that? Yes they can but man that would suck. All you need to make a grounded comic boom live action movie is a talented director and writer that can think out side the box. Also on top I forgot to add iron man part 1, it was grounded as possible as well.

Without x1 and x2 on how it was made, grounded as possible there wouldn't have been a green light on spiderman, did you know that??? That means no comic book movie in Hollywood. Think of that, and if you still can't process that go back to your little Saturday cartoons, your not mature enough.
xXkryptoniteXx - 2/21/2012, 10:22 AM
To those people saying gritty turn shitty, lol nice kiddy rhyme. Your just still going to watch the movie and when and if it becomes a success. You'll be eating your own words and see how a little imagination and also a director that's thinking outside the box can make it work. Grounded as possible will just make comic book based movies to go for another decade in Hollywood, or else it well just become the western movies. Also speaking of western, have you notice the successful western movies that are being made are grounded and not like the old days??? Times change. Grounded as possible for the mature audience.
MisterNiceGuy - 2/21/2012, 10:37 AM
@paulrom, yea I'm just messin with ya. Bale was ok. I just feel he can be a bit of an overactor sometimes.
LoudNoises - 2/21/2012, 10:55 AM
@just1superguy

The only parts that were funny that I remember in the first trilogy were the scenes with Bruce Cambell. The spiderman jokes were corney them too. But aren't they sort if supposed to be?
darkmetal - 2/21/2012, 11:37 AM
The only bad spot for Raimi's Spider-Man movies was elements of 3. And though it seems popular as hell to diss it, the movie was not as bad as fans and even some reviewers make it out to be. The worst thing about the movie was the inclusion of Venom, which the sorry corporate bastards at SONY/Columbia Demanded. This reboot, is very much a corporate film. Spider-Man 3 made over 890 million worldwide. The film has a 63% at Rotten Tomatoes and it has a B- among critics. The movie was in no way a bad movie like Pirates 3 At Worlds End or Phantom Menace or Attack of The Clones, or Indy 4. That's not just my opinion-you can Google the facts, and finding one reviewer who give it a bad review as if it was a truly horrible movie doesn't erase the facts. And no Super-hero is so loved that a horrible movie based on them makes over 300 mil domestic and 890 worldwide.
ManofSteelo - 2/21/2012, 11:39 AM
Hard to tell from just the trailer(s), obviously, but this movie looks pretty dark already, and probably closer to Nolan’s Batman stuff than to “grounded”. Raimi’s Spidey missed the mark because it was too much fantasy and not enough comic-book; TASM is dodgy b/c of the aforementioned apparent tone, and liberalities with characters and their connection to Peter (Gwen as MJ’s stand-in and Doc Connors as Peter / Spidey’s parallel, a la Norman / Gobby in Raimi’s joint). And Garfield supposedly studied spiders to prepare for the role? WTF?! Exactly when “apparently working hard” becomes “hardly working, apparently”. All he needed were some comics and a script. Sheesh.
AutobotCommander84 - 2/21/2012, 12:09 PM
@Scorpion8125 Wow, you really are grif's son.
Loki9876 - 2/21/2012, 12:26 PM
i'm glad it isn't dark and gritty not everything needs to be dark and gritty most directors think that it must be dark to be a hit but that's not true for some movies it's good but not for all.
SmithWillSuffice - 2/21/2012, 1:04 PM
It's not gonna be "dark and gritty" like Batman, it's just not full of goofy crap like Raimi's movies were. I saw more classic Peter Parker banter in one two minute trailer than in all of Raimi's movies. It's ridiculous how some people try to make Raimi's movies out to be some kind of masterpieces. Speaking as a life long Spider-Man fan those movies left much to be desired just as Burton's highly flawed Batman movies did.
PeterParker1991 - 2/21/2012, 1:07 PM
Well said, Mr. Garfield. Good article.
thewonderer - 2/21/2012, 1:23 PM
@Misterniceguy

Keaton was shit

Bale is awesome. Best Wayne AND Batman. The voice is fine, you anal tards looking to find something wrong with the film will point out the one original thing Nolan trys to do with the character.
darkmetal - 2/21/2012, 2:24 PM
@Azazel1 Batman and Robin earned 42 million its 1st week, because people expected it to be great. It dropped 63% in it's 2nd week. The movie finished with only 107 million in the US and 130 for THE REST OF THE WORLD. Spider-Man 3 has a 63% positive rating @ Rotten Tomatoes while Batman and Robin 13%. Pirates 3, 45%, Phantom Menace 57%. Batman movies were the ONLY successful comic based movie franchise in the 90's. Your idea that a really bad movie, that disappoints the audience still succeeds is absolutely wrong! Here's the numbers for Batman and Robin, which remember, was expected to entertain and was part of a hugely popular movie series at the time: 1st day 16 mil, day 3, 11 mil, 2nd weekend, 8th day, 5 million a -68% drop from the week before. Word of mouth got around in less than a week. Spider-Man 3 was making 5 million a day on day 23 + 24. Yes there were people like you who didn't like it. But if the majority of people agreed, and it didn't satisfy them and entertain them, it would not have been making 14 million in it's 4th weekend. You have your opinions and feelings about the movie, but the FACTS AND STATS say the movie entertained a lot of people.
TheRationalOne - 2/21/2012, 2:29 PM
First of all, grounded doesn't mean "realistic". It means grounded. As in, yes, Spiderman is a completely sci-fi type character, but lets set that fictional character in as a real of a surrounding as we can. Get it? Its not tough. Its pretty simple.

And like I've said before, having crooks and criminals running around in the day time for all to see is unrealistic. Spiderman may need to suit up occasionally during the day, but not for 3 movies worth.

@just1superguy - All you proved is how much better his costume looks, how much more like Parker Garfield looks, and how much better these movies are shaping up to be. All the promotional material looks way more convincing for this movie. He doesn't look whiney, he looks conflicted. Like, oh, I don't know, a kid who has these incredible powers to deal with while also finishing high school, kissing the girl, and SAVING THE DAMN CITY!!! What do you want? Parker has ALWAYS been a conflicted character. He's not Cap who was a born hero and wants nothing more than to fight injustice. He's a teenager with powers. How would you, as a teenager, deal with these powers AND your life?

And the trailer had HELLA jokes and quips. He doesn't look TOO whiney.
mrexcellent - 2/21/2012, 2:50 PM
Dang.
bgg1175 & ripynt. Good commentary there.

@ bgg1175: you know, I thought spider-man 3 had some of the series finest moments in it. Overall I was disappointed in the movie, but I can't deny that I liked parts of the film. I definitely don't put it at the bottom of the barrel for superhero films.

@ ripynt: so true. You'd think people would cut a kid some slack.
darkmetal - 2/21/2012, 2:54 PM
@Misterniceguy Keaton was a cool Beetlejuice but he was like 5'5" or so, and he obviously couldn't have made it through basic training, or even ran a 10 mile marathon but he was supposed to be Batman. And the Batman he played was doing one liner jokes like Roger Moores James Bond. In reality a couple of 15 year olds could have kicked his ass. This was one of the all time great miscasts.
mrexcellent - 2/21/2012, 3:03 PM
@just1superguy: you know, I really wasn't trying to take a swipe at you through my praise of ripynt's comment. I liked his explanation of why Peter Parker is a conflicted character, & I do think people are too quick to call certain character's whiny though. Not that you were,but I think his comment inadvertently addressed a lot of those complaints from other people.

I read in another thread a comment where someone accused Andrew Garfield's character in The Social Network of being whiny. In my opinion, Eduardo Saverine had every reason in the world to be angry & hurt, in the movie anyway. I know that things happened differently in real life & I can't comment on that. but there comes a point when you get screwed over so bad that it's perfectly fine to be angry. Saverine didn't just lay down & cry either, he did something about it. I think that when amazing spider-man comes out, it'll be similar with peter. He doesn't just sit & mope, he goes out, makes a hero out of himself, & he gets by.
eyegloo - 2/21/2012, 3:08 PM
I guess this explains why this movie feels so amazingly natural.
Blitzed - 2/21/2012, 3:20 PM
@LoganXX35 Its pretty obvious youve never read a Spider-Man comic in your life. First off, the cops were always after Spidey, ALWAYS. Second, Parker was constantly conflicted in almost every aspect of his life due to being Spider-Man (conflicted dosent mean freak-look it up). Finally, anyone who claims Rami's films were 'like spider-man came off the comics and on to the big screen' obviously has only had those movies and the children's animated series as a reference for the character. Anyone who has read Spidey over the last 40 years would never make that claim.

Im going to guess from your comments that you are pretty young and so you were probably weened on the Rami films. Therefore I understand how you hold them dear but they completely fell short on the character of Spider-Man and Peter Parker (I could care less about the suit, thats not why I read Spidey growing up). I have no idea if this movie will be a proper representaion of the true charcter found in the comics but I am more optimistic based on what Ive seen.
mgeoff88 - 2/21/2012, 3:22 PM
Making something gritty doesn't necessarily make it better. Spider-Man's rogues gallery consists of a few villains that would make the movies much darker, but most of them wouldn't.

Batman's rogue galleries consists of psychotic criminals so making the Batman movies darker works for the character and his villains. It wouldn't it work as well for Spider-Man. He's not a dark character.
meatbag - 2/21/2012, 3:27 PM
Okay, after reading that, I am much more likely to see this movie in the theater. I was going to wait for DVD, but I'm less skeptical. I still don't like the soccer cleats on the costume, but I'll get over it. As a reboot, I was originally against it, because I actually really liked all three Raimi movies. I was disappointed with SM3 because of Venom, but I kind of knew it was coming. Too many villains, too many elements, same beef I had with all the 90's Batman movies (obviously not including Batman, which was '89).
meatbag - 2/21/2012, 3:51 PM
@Banekill, Exactly. I've been a Spidey fan since I was a kid, before I was old enough to read more than Dick and Jane books, I watched Spiderman and his Amazing friends (this would have been 1979-1980), so I'm not a kid, or "new" to Spiderman, and I thoought the Raimi movies were pretty great. I was just stoked that the movie was made, and made so well, I didn't care about things like the webshooters or the Goblin's costume. All of that said, my fingers are crossed for the reboot. We'll see.
WruceBane - 2/21/2012, 4:56 PM
Uhuhuhuhuhuuuuhuhhahuhhoooooo you [foo foo]s are full of shit. Raimi raped the spiderman mythos. It might not have been entirely his fault, even if he is a [frick]ing annoying director, but Toby McGuire was a crying whiny bitch and kirsten dunst can't make a facial expression to save her life.

I am so glad someone's finally going to do this movie justice. The cast, if nothing else, is inarguably fantastic. The scriptwriter, Steve Kloves, banged out ALL of the Harry Potter movies, and those only got better with each one. Mark Webb made a great, endearing little indie pic that had enough of its own sunny disposition. so you see a lot of shadows and lighting effects in the posters, who [frick]ing cares.

This movie is going to be THE spiderman movie. I can shit better movies than raimi's, and someone should really pay me to do it.
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