Spiderman (film, 2002)

Modest nerd schoolboy Peter Parker lives a normal life and is secretly in love with his neighbor and classmate Mary Jane Watson , who meets with a school bully. Peter is not respected by his classmates, they call him names and in every possible way scoff at him. Peter has no friends except rich handsome and school playboy Harry Osbourne . Peter is interested in photographing, but he cannot boast of anything else - he is an orphan, he lives with poor but loving uncles and aunts. But once on a tour it is bitten by a spider with altered DNA . The next day after the bite, Peter discovers abilities that the average person does not have - tremendous strength, agility, endurance, the ability to climb walls and ceilings and the ability to release cobwebs, as well as the "spider sense".

On the very first day with new abilities, Peter deftly picks up Mary Jane, who slipped next to his table in the dining room, and, accidentally releasing a web into a tray of food, throws him at the guy Mary Jane, which provokes him to conflict. In the school corridor, a scuffle begins between them, during which Peter easily defeats the bully, not letting a single blow from him.

Peter decides to use his abilities to win money for a car and to impress Mary Jane, for which he records himself for amateur fights without rules, where they promise a solid reward. He wins the fight with the Wrestler Hammer Magro in battle, but he is deceived and left without a win, paying only $ 100 of the promised amount. When the organizers are robbed, Peter, out of revenge, decides not to stop the robber. After the robber kills Ben Parker for the sake of his car, who was waiting for Peter, he, in a fit of grief and anger, begins chasing the criminal. During the escape, the robber finds himself in an abandoned building, where Peter enters a battle with him, during which the fugitive stumbles, falls out of the window and breaks. Remembering the last conversation with his uncle and his phrase “With great force comes great responsibility,” Peter realizes that his mission is to fight crime.

Meanwhile, Norman Osbourne , the father of Harry Osbourne , financing development in the military sphere and at risk of failing the order due to the dubious side effects of his development, decides to conduct an experiment on himself, thereby proving the promise of his ideas. As a result of the experiment, it becomes stronger, but is damaged by the mind and gets a split personality, as a result of which it turns into a cunning and cruel villain of the Green goblin , capable of everything for the sake of his goal. Along the way, they show how Peter gets a job as a freelance photographer. He must photograph Spider-Man, that is, himself.

Norman, having discovered that Oskorp board members are planning to sell the company, kills them during the Times Square festival, uses his inventions - a flying glider, a suit with a goblin head helmet and various compact bombs, but Spider-Man does not give him cause great destruction, incidentally saving Mary Jane from falling from a height, what awakens in her sympathy for the new hero of the city.

John Jameson, the editor of the newspaper where Parker works, calls Norman the Green Goblin. Later, the Green Goblin rushes into the newspaper office and asks Jameson about a photographer who has always shot Spider-Man. Soon Spider-Man appears, but the Goblin, having euthanized him with gas, carries it to the roof and, proposing to combine efforts, flies away.

A few days later, Goblin lures Spider into a burning building and asks him if he will join him. When he refuses, the Goblin attacks Spider-Man and, wounding him in his hand, leaves. Later, Norman discovers the true identity of Spider-Man when, visiting his son Harry during Thanksgiving, notices Peter the same wound on his arm as the one he had inflicted on Spider-Man in a duel. Deciding to mentally attack Spider-Man, Goblin attacks and seriously hurts Aunt May. When Osbourne learns from his son that Peter from an early age is in love with Mary Jane, he kidnaps her and gives Spider-Man the choice: to save her or the children on the cable car. However, Spider-Man saves both children and Mary Jane. After that, the Goblin takes Spider-Man to the abandoned building, tears him half of the costume and mask and methodically beats him. When Green Goblin begins to threaten Mary Jane, Spider-Man defeats him, and Norman removes the Goblin's helmet to show himself to Spider-Man and asks for protection from the Green Goblin. However, at this moment Norman secretly guides the glider to pierce Spider-Man from behind. The spider scent warns the hero, and at the last moment Parker dodges the blades, and the glider pierces the Green Goblin, killing him. Before his death, Osbourne, having come to reason, asks Peter not to tell his son the truth about the Goblin.

The film ends with a love scene between Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, in which the viewer is hinted that Mary Jane still realizes the double life of Peter Parker. At the funeral of Norman Osbourne, Harry tells his bosom friend Peter about intentions to avenge Spider-Man for his father’s death.

Development

In April 1999, Sony Pictures acquired the rights to all previous screenplays for the movie “Spiderman” from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . The contract included the original script of James Cameron . However, the studio stated that it was not going to hire Cameron to work on the film, and his script would not be used ^[3] . Potential candidates for the post of director were Roland Emmerich , Ang Lee , Chris Columbus , Jan de Bont , M. Night Shyamalan , Tony Scott and David Fincher . Fincher did not want the plot to be based on the story of the character’s origin. Instead, he wanted to film the The Night Gwen Stacy Died storyline arch, but the studio refused ^[4] . In January 2000, Sam Raimi was chosen to direct the film, ^[5] whose premiere was scheduled for the summer of 2001 ^[6] . In his youth, he was fond of comics, and Raimi's love for Spider-Man brought the work to the director ^[7] .

In developing the first project scenario, David Kepp was guided by Cameron’s work, literally reproducing certain points ^[8] . In Cameron's version, Electro and Sandman acted as antagonists. Rewriting the original script, Kepp replaced the main antagonist with the Green Goblin , while Dr. Octopus was to act as a secondary antagonist ^[9] . Finding a possible plot line between father and son between Norman Osborn and Peter Parker more interesting, Raimi decided to remove Doctor Octopus from the film ^[10] . In June, Columbia hired Scott Rosenberg to rewrite Kepp's script. The organic element of Spider-Man's web, the idea first proposed by Cameron ^[11], remained a constant element of each version of the script. Fearing a suspension of disbelief on the part of viewers that Peter could independently invent mechanical web-shooters, Raimi decided to leave the organic web ^[12] .

Rosenberg struck out Dr. Octopus from the script and wrote several additional action scenes ^[13] . Raimi felt that adding a third origin story would complicate the film too much. From the final version of the scenario, scenes with the rescue of Spider-Man Fargas, the executive director of Ozkorp, confined to a wheelchair, as well as with the prevention of the situation with the hostages on the train were excluded ^[4] . Before production, producer Laura Ziskin hired her husband Alvin Sargent to refine the dialogues, in particular between Peter and Mary Jane ^[14] . Columbia provided the US Screenwriters Guild with a list of four people who worked on the Spider-Man scenario: Rosenberg, Sargent and James Cameron, each of whom voluntarily withdrew mention in the credits along with the fourth author, David Köpp ^[8] .

Casting

Maguire got the role of Peter Parker in July 2000, ^[15] being the main candidate Raimi, who liked his acting role in the film “ Winemakers Rules ” ^[16] . From the beginning, the studio was doubtful about attracting Maguire, since he did not fit into the ranks of “titans with adrenaline going wild”, ^[15] however, while listening to the actor, they managed to impress the studio management. His fee was about $ 3 to $ 4 million, with a higher salary in potential sequels ^[15] . For several months, to improve his physique, Maguire worked with a physical training coach, a yoga instructor, a martial arts master and a rock climbing specialist ^[12] . In addition, the actor studied spiders and worked with a tightrope walker to mimic the arachnid movements, and also sat on a special diet ^[17] . In addition to Maguire, the studio considered Leonardo DiCaprio , Edward Furlong , Freddie Prince Jr. , ^[18] Chris Klein , Wes Bentley, and Heath Ledger to play the main character. ^[4] Furlong was Cameron’s primary candidate in 1996. ^[19] In addition, Scott Speedman , Jay Rodan, and James Franco claimed the role of Spider-Man, who eventually got the role of Harry Osbourne ^[20] .

Before Sam Raimi chose Willem Dafoe for the role of the Green Goblin in this film, she was offered to such actors as Nicolas Cage ^[21] and John Malkovich ^[22] . Actors John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe starred in the film The Shadow of the Vampire (2000), produced by Nicolas Cage.

The music for the film was written by American composer Danny Elfman.

They took the film quite warmly. On the Rotten Tomatoes aggregator, 89% of critics' reviews were positive with a rating of 7.6. At Metascore, the film’s average score of 100 was 73. Roger Ebert, despite the low mark (2.5 / 4), praised the story of the hero’s origin, and the characters - he said - would not disappoint fans of the original comic strip.

• MTV Movie Awards in the nomination "The best female role" (Kirsten Dunst).
• MTV Movie Awards in the nomination "Best Kiss" (Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst).

The film also received 2 Oscar nominations in the categories “Best Sound” and “Best Visual Effects”.

In January 2003, Sony announced the development of a sequel to the movie "Spiderman", the producer and director of which will once again be Sam Raimi. March 15, 2003 released the first trailer, while the premiere of "Spider-Man 2" was held June 30, 2004. Spider-Man 3, the second sequel to Spider-Man, and the final film in the series by director Sam Raimi was released on May 4, 2007.

• Official site of the movie "Spiderman" on the Wayback Machine ( November 29, 2002 ) (English)
• Spider-Man (Eng.) On the Internet Movie Database
• Spider-Man on the Box Office Mojo website