Hey, Sony! It’s your pal, Chris Henrikson! Look, Sony, I know we’ve had a complicated love-hate relationship – on one hand, you gave me PlayStation, which is essentially God’s gift to mankind, so I’ll always love you for that. On the other hand, you were given five – not one, not two, but FIVE – attempts to bring arguably the world’s most beloved superhero into live action, and you never quite managed to do it. Sure, the first two Spider-Man films and the first Amazing Spider-Man were… decent. But they were just that – barely a level above okay. Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 were… not okay. At all. But hey, now you’ve got a chance to make it all better, because your big buddy Marvel (as in, the guys who became the biggest studio in the world in, like, 3 weeks) is here to help out! Finally, Sony, this is your chance! You’ll finally be able to make Spider-Man movies that are beyond okay! It’ll be The Dark Knight of Spider-Man! The Iron Man of Spider-Man! The Winter Soldier of Spider-Man! The… Are you still making Sinister Six? Wait, I thought we agreed that you’re throwing all of that out of the window and will just be listening to what Marvel’s telling you… Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on – you want to make the new Spider-Man black? For real? *Sigh* Okay… Let’s try to make this work.
Imagine, if you will, that I’m someone at a very high post at Sony, someone like Amy Pascal, for instance. And I’m being given the responsibility to introduce a new Spider-Man to the world while keeping certain conditions set by my stockholders and/or executives in mind. Those conditions are:
- Spider-Man must appear in Captain America: Civil War in 2016 before appearing in his own movie in 2017
- Spider-Man must also appear in Sinister Six in 2016
- The 2017 film must introduce and be mainly about a new ethnic Spider-Man
Now, aside from these conditions, I’ll have the freedom to use whatever actor I want in whatever part as long as it fits the story, and I’ll also be free to adapt whatever storylines I want into the new movies. My job would be to make the transition as smooth as possible and keep the continuity in check. And continuity is the word of the day here, because in order for my idea to work The Amazing Spider-Man movies must fall in continuity with the Marvel movies. And honesty, I don’t see why they can’t – Spider-Man got his powers after the Battle of New York, and all the Avengers were busy when Electro showed up. There, simple as that. No further explanation required. With that in mind, let’s begin with…
Now, before we delve into Civil War, I must make it absolutely clear that this is a Captain America movie, first and foremost. Tony Stark acts as the villain, and Spider-Man is chucked right in the middle of the conflict, but his role is pretty much supporting. Think Black Widow in Winter Soldier and cut it in half. For the five of you who didn’t know this already, Civil War picks up on the events of Age of Ultron where the Avengers presumably destroy a good chunk of the world they’re trying to protect, and destroy it fighting their own creation, mind you. To make sure this never happens again, the government proposes a registration act which would require superhumans to register and work as essentially superpowered police officers. They’d receive special training and would be following certain regulations to ensure minimal collateral damage while fighting superpowered baddies. Naturally, not everyone is happy with this, and the superhero community quickly splits in the middle – one side (led by Iron Man) embraces the idea an sees it as a safer path towards a brighter future. The other side (led by Captain America) feel like the Registration Act is something straight out of 1984 and it’s the beginning of the end for freedom. In order to win public support for the Act, Tony Stark knows that he needs to bring a champion of the common man to his side, and who better than your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man?
Now, the comic book equivalent of this story has Spider-Man at the very core of the story – hell, he’s pretty much the main character of the entire narrative. I know a lot of people expect that to be the case for the movie, but honestly, I don’t feel that’s the right way to go – we want the focus to be on Captain America and his struggle with Iron Man, while keeping Spider-Man as just a side character. He’d just be one of the many allies fighting on each side. Captain America has Black Widow, Tony Stark has Nick Fury. Captain America recruits Black Panther, Iron Man recruits Spider-Man. Now, don’t forget – the webhead comes straight out of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, where he lost a loved one. If Tony Stark can push his buttons and promise him that the Registration Act is there to prevent this from happening again, he’d absolutely have Spider-Man in the palm of his hand. In order to publicly show off his new ally, Stark calls a press conference where we recreate that famous moment from the comics – Spidey pulls his mask off and proclaims “My name is Peter Parker, and I’ve been Spider-Man since I was 15”. Now keep in mind – in case it wasn’t clear before this is still Andrew Garfield in the role, though his face probably wouldn’t be visible until that dramatic moment when he just pulls off his mask and shocks both the Marvel universe and the audience as whispers of “Weren’t they going to recast him?” fill the theater. With that climactic moment, Spider-Man’s role in the movie pretty much ends. Of course, he still participates in the final battle (on Iron Man’s side), but the focus is, for the most part, kept where it should be. In the end, the Registration Act passes, Captain America is killed by a sniper and the world knows that Peter Parker is Spider-Man.
We move onto the next movie in our timeline – 2016’s Sinister Six, produced entirely by Sony without Marvel’s involvement. Keep in mind, I won’t really delve too much into the story as it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, and I also have no idea how I could possibly make a Sinister Six movie work. I’ve heard rumors that it was originally designed as a heist movie – Spider-Man is forced to team up with the Sinister Six in order to steal something from somewhere. So, what could be so valuable and so important that Oscorp is willing to get 6 villains together and make them team up with their worst enemy to get it? There’s only one thing I can imagine that would be important enough – radioactive spiders. Someone somewhere, maybe an old colleague of Peter’s parents, managed to crack the secrets of cross-species genetics and has them at their disposal. Imagine having an army of Spider-Men at your whim ready to do whatever you like, possibly even threaten the United States. And since Oscorp want the spiders for themselves, they send out The Sinister Six plus one to retrieve one sample and destroy the rest.
What follows are the usual shenanigans – in-fighting, tension, “You killed my girlfriend” being shouted out during every team meeting, all that good stuff. In the third act of the movie, the group finds out that the people who have engineered the spiders have way more on their hands – they have also perfected Dr. Connors’ serum to such a level that it can now cure any and all diseases and scars completely. Naturally, the terminally ill Green Goblin absolutely wants to get his hands on that, but Spider-Man’s like “Lol nope” and destroys everything, claiming that he just can’t allow it to fall into the wrong hands, but the viewer is left to wonder if it isn’t just out of spite. Whatever the case, the Green Goblin is obviously outraged, and he swears that the next time he sees Spider-Man he’s going to kill him for what he’s done. At the end of the movie, Spider-Man and the Six go their separate ways, but not before we learn that one of the Six has actually managed to keep one of the radioactive spiders safe, which is now in Oscorp’s possession. But unfortunately the corporation is crap out of luck, as in the post-credits scene we learn that this spider is stolen from them by an individual only referred to as Davis.
And thus we get to the 2017 movie – the one supposed to finally put Andrew Garfield to rest and introduce our new Spider-Man! And why wait – the movie opens in medias res with Peter Parker’s final battle. We don’t learn too much about it, but frankly, we don’t need to – all we know is that the Green Goblin and the Sinister Six are free, and this time they’re out for blood. Spider-Man is all bruised and bloodied, his costume torn on numerous places, and the attacks keep coming from all sides. But just as the battle’s taken to the Parker residence, the movie cuts back to Miles Morales, a completely average black-Latino teenager with a boring, ordinary life. He’s a huge fan of superheroes, with his room full of Spider-Man and Avengers memorabilia, and he wishes to have superpowers himself, though mostly so he can escape from responsibility. When his uncle Aaron comes to visit, Miles is overjoyed – but little does he know that Aaron has just stolen a radioactive spider from Oscorp and is looking for a place to stash it before he can sell it. He chooses Miles’ room for the purpose, which is too bad because the boy himself stumbles upon the spider and gets himself bitten, attaining powers similar, but not exactly the same as those of Peter Parker.
Interestingly, now that he actually has superpowers, Miles finds out that he doesn’t want them – in reality, being a superhero is anything but fun. So for a while the boy decides to hide, pretending like everything’s fine and nothing has changed. His uncle comes back to collect the spider he “forgot” in Miles’ room, so that works out just fine. There’s no reason for him to change anything about his life… until he’s caught in a massive superhero battle. It’s the fight from the beginning, where Spider-Man fights the Sinister Six. Enticed by the action, Miles becomes one of the dozens of on-lookers who are there to witness Spider-Man as he fights off the Six, taking down the Green Goblin for good. Left without their leadership, and with Spider-Man mortally wounded, the rest of the villains scatter (if the budget allows, maybe they can even be subdued by the intervention of an Avenger or two). Unfortunately, Peter Parker dies in his aunt’s arms, saying how happy he is that he managed to protect her before passing away. And a thought occurs to Miles – he just stood there and did nothing while his idol was being pummeled to death. What if he had interfered? What if he had done something? Didn’t he have a responsibility to use the powers he had received? And just like that, dear readers, Miles Morales learns for himself that with great power comes great responsibility.
The way I see it, the rest of the movie would be about Miles trying to fill in Peter Parker’s shoes as Spider-Man, fighting off the Sinister Five and just learning the basics of being a hero in the same way that Peter did once. He wouldn’t receive his web shooters or black outfit until the climax of the movie, and they would serve as a representation of his heroism, indicating that he is ready to become the next Spider-Man. Either way, Miles Morales has been successfully introduced, and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker was given the exit he deserved. And ultimately, that’s what I set out to do.
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