Greetings All!
First off, can we all pray to the almighty lord of nerdom who made it so that this holy union could happen.
OK, now get to your feet soldier, the war is just starting. Like a battered housewife, we've been poorly mistreated by our significant other and have begun to be reluctant and even cynical that a decent Spider-Man on film could happen. Well I'm here to tell you it can (and probably will) happen!
Also, a lot of this comes from my pitch for a Spider-Man film, so read that
HERE if you'd like.
This list could easily be Top 20, Top 50, or even Top 100 things I want (and don't doubt that I could do it) in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot. So what should we see?
5. WILL THE REAL NORMAN OSBORN PLEASE STAND UP?
Out of the excitement of Spider-Man joining the MCU, my first response was, "Oh Shit!" then my second response was, "Well I guess Norman Osborn also joins the MCU." In the top-tier pantheon of Marvel supervillains I'd put Magneto, Dr. Doom, Galactus, Loki, Red Skull, Thanos, Ultron, Loki, Kingpin, and Green Goblin. I'm sure many of you will argue for more but when I think about it, before the deal, Marvel had access to 6/10 of those. Which is not bad persay, but it's pretty sad that Marvel doesn't have a larger pool to dip into in terms of upper tier Marvel villains.
I would think that the best way to adapt Norman would be to make him a well-known public figure. One that many people know about and you see him at many charitable events and so forth. However, there should be a slow degrading of his public persona as his many misdeeds come to light. A fall from grace that leads to him taking desperate measures to reclaim his power.
While villains like Doc Ock and Venom are obviously also fair game now, the fact that Marvel can now utilize Norman Osborn is the most exciting prospect of this for me going forward. I mean, you have his obvious includement in The Thunderbolts, as well as his roles in Secret Invasion and the resulting after effect of that story, Dark Reign. I am not saying that they should only use Norman for these stories, as that's a waste to be honest, I feel like it would be highly ignorant and downright dumb of Marvel to neglect one of their most infamous villains of all time!
Don't get me wrong, I would still be happy just to see Norman appear in the Sony movies, but his lack of inclusion in an MCU film would be criminal (pun intended).
As for who should play him:
4. DON'T MAKE PETERS LOVE LIFE SIMPLE!
One of my major complaints with both sets of Spider-Man movies is that they never quite got Peters dating life right. I'd say Raimi's Spider-Man made it
slightly more interesting however them throwing in the crappy MJ being jealous of Peter and her being a pawn of Harry-Goblin didn't do any favours in terms of viewers. As for TASM series, I mean does it sink any lower then:
Teacher: Don't Make promises you can't keep
Peter: But those are the best kind.
In the comics, Peters first love was Betty Brant, that falls apart and he meets MJ. He sees her occasionally until he finds something in Gwen Stacy. Which of course doesn't end well. I'm not giving this the amount of attention it probably deserves but the general gist is that Peters love life is complicated in a natural way. No Spider-Man movie up until this point has understood the love life of Peter. I would rather instead of them sticking to one girl, give Peter options. I want to see him actually pondering whether he's better off with Gwen or MJ. I want to see his heartbreak in Betty leaving him for another man. I want to see those emotional peaks and valleys. That's always been a big part of Spider-Man and his comics, and I want to see it finally done with some respect and relevance.
Which brings me to...
3. HAVE JOSS DIRECT
Joss Whedon has gone on record on more then a few occasions saying he will probably not return for Avengers Infinity War but has stated that he still wants to work with Marvel. In all likelihood, Spider-Man is a great franchise for him to build.
My ideal Spider-Man film has everything that Joss is well known for. A clever, fun, and humorous script, strong female characters, and respect for the source material.
It helps that after Age of Ultron he would have time to start working on Spider-Man. He also doesn't have any other announced projects, seemingly making him a viable (if not the best) choice to course correct the web crawler on screen. Remember folks,
2. MAKE SMART CHOICES REGARDING VILLAINS
Very rarely in Spider-Mans brief tenure on screen have we really seen a lot of reverence for his rogues gallery. Did The Lizard need to be the villain in TASM? No. Did Electro have to be the villain in TASM2? No! So far, no Spider-Man villain has been essential to the plot at hand.
This needs to change. I've always said I don't mind if a franchise wants to tackle a villain for a second time. As long as this villain fits the story and makes sense. The Joker made sense in
The Dark Knight, as his role in that story was essential. You could not replace Joker in that film with say Riddler or Bane and make it work. In my pitch for a reboot, I mentioned Scorpion. His role is similar to the one in the comics where Mac is hired by Jonah (and in this story is working with Norman and Alistair Smythe). His story makes sense in this case, an ex-con looking to make some extra cash takes on this job. A bit more interchangable then say The Joker in
The Dark Knight but at least it makes more sense then The Lizard, Electro, Venom, or Harry-Goblin in previous films.
For the films, and the MCU as a whole, these are the villains I would like to see:
Scorpion
Green Goblin
Doctor Octopus
Chameleon
Mysterio
Alistair Smythe
Kraven
Kingpin (OK this one is cheating)
Venom
HONORABLE MENTIONS (BECAUSE I CAN'T COUNT)
Bring back J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah.
Shelf Miles Morales, give Peter time to shine in the MCU first.
Make a soundtrack for the films that don't suck immensely.
1. DON'T CREATE A UNIVERSE; CREATE AN EXPANSION TO THE MCU
While Sam Raimi's movies were a lot of fun, they came at a time before universe building was a thing. Now we have a universal monster cinematic universe, the Fox-Men cinematic universe, and the DC Cinem...sorry I can't finish that last one with a straight face.
You get the point though. It's all about interconnected stuff. Which I'm not opposed to. Problem with that is a simple one though. Not every franchise can do what Marvel has done. Now Sony has seemingly smartened up all of a sudden as we now have Spider-Man in the MCU.
Now when this was announced, I assumed that this will sort of be an addition to the MCU, or an expansion if you're a gamer. Sort of like a seperate but connected part of the universe. This makes the most sense. I don't think the film should overly try to create something beyond its means. I mean, do we really need an Aunt May solo film?
This is very early stages, and I'm hopin I'm assuming correctly, but I would like to think that this Spider-Man won't be big into creating its own universe. I imagine it will be building off of the MCU and make its own contributions. Sort of like Agents of SHIELD where it responds to the films, but also makes its own contributions.
If this article has illustrated anything it's this. I want to see Norman Osborn in the MCU, I want to see Daredevil and Spider-Man hanging out on a rooftop. Have Kingpin try to take out Spider-Man. This is the reason this deal has made such big waves as it's only going to compliment with the universe, not clash with it.
Now, for a moment of silence.