How Marc Webb Really Feels About The Amazing Spider-Man Movies

Andrew Garfield in The Amazing Spider-Man

In between the original Spider-Man film trilogy with Tobey Maguire, and the brand new Spider-Man that works with Marvel, there was another franchise that took a different take on the wall crawler. Ultimately the film's lack of success led to the new era with Marvel, but how does the director really feel about it all now? Marc Webb could be forgiven for being frustrated by the film's reception and might even have blame he'd like to place elsewhere. Instead, he prefers to look back positively on the films as he says he has no regrets about the movies or how they were made. According to the director...

I loved everybody involved. I really did. I didn't have an adversarial relationship with the studio, at all. There were a lot of very smart people. These are just incredibly complicated movies to make. I am proud of them, in many ways, and I stand by them. I'm certainly not a victim, in that situation.

Marc Webb's endorsement of the movies to Collider isn't 100% glowing. He does say he stands by them "in many ways" which would seem to suggest that there are some ways in which he doesn't. However, he also appears to absolve anybody else of blame by saying that the movies were very complicated and that he doesn't feel that he was a victim, so this wasn't a case of a movie being dictated to him by a studio or decisions being made without him. He's taking responsibility for the final product.

Marc Webb also goes beyond simply taking responsibility and also fully endorses the Amazing Spider-Man movies. While both movies, and the second one especially, were critically panned, Webb says that the second film has some very important themes in it which he's actually quite proud of having created.He says the movie was incredibly ambitious.

It's hard for me to think about it, in terms of regrets. There are so many things that I'm proud of. There was an ambition with the second movie, in particular. The idea that it's a superhero that can't save everybody is something that I'm really proud of. I'm really proud of the ambition of that because it's an important message, and I believe in that. I believe in what we were after. They're really, really difficult movies to make. They're complex in ways that people don't fully understand. They weren't disasters. But in terms of regrets, I don't think of it in those terms. I felt really, really fortunate to have that opportunity.

While it was the lack of success from Amazing Spider-Man 2 which ultimately led to Sony looking to strike a deal with Marvel, it doesn't appear that the director has regrets about the film's that he helped to bring to the world. Looking back, what do you think about the Amazing Spider-Man films now?

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.