Amazing Spider-Man director Marc Webb: 'They weren't disasters'

Marc Webb, the appropriately-named helmsman behind the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movies, has spoken about his tenure as helmsman of the spidey franchise.

It’s fair to say that the two movies, which saw Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, were not loved by either fans or critics (though critics were kinder about the first movie).

The board of Columbia Pictures weren’t too enamoured either, deciding to rather abruptly curtail Garfield’s time in his spidey suit.

With the use of some impressively diplomatic language, Webb fielded a question from movie site Collider about his ‘regrets’ deftly.

“It’s hard for me to think about it in terms of regrets,” he said.

“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. That’s a whole other long, in-depth conversation that I probably shouldn’t have publicly.

“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.”

There’s an hint of some discord hidden in there, but perhaps that story is one for his memoirs.

For his part, Webb was massively inexperienced in the blockbuster field when he took on the job, having made just one feature film, the indie rom-com ‘500 Days of Summer’ in 2009.

The first movie, released in 2012, grossed a decent $758 million, but it was also extraordinarily expensive, costing $230 million to make, and most likely that figure again in marketing and promotion.

Two years later, when the second movie arrived, it grossed a fair bit less – $709 million – and while it cost less too – $200 million or thereabouts – neither film performed perhaps as it needed to in today’s superhero-saturated market.

Webb’s new movie ‘Gifted’, a custody drama surrounding a gifted child starring Chris Evans and Jenny Slate, is out in UK on June 16.

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