Marc Webb Talks With Rolling Stone On THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2: 'I Want The Audience To Be *Thwipping* Thrilled'

The Amazing Spider-Man was so much bigger than anything you'd made before. What did you learn?

There was a lot of trial and error — I was learning a lot of things. The visual effects took a long time. I wasn't efficient, and I made a lot of mistakes, honestly.


What kind of mistakes do you think you made?

Philosophically, the grounded quality of things was important for the performances, but I think it limited some of the visual effects. I wasn't as confident in the process of animating Spider-Man. But there's this idea about mastery: You just want to get better at all the things you do.


A lot of filmmakers don't admit that they make mistakes.
I have enormous confidence in this film, so it's easier to talk about the process. For example, in the first movie, when we designed the Spider-Man suit, I wanted a suit that a kid could make out of materials he finds himself. That's why the goggles were made of sunglasses. But they were too small; I didn't quite understand how important those big iconic eyes were to people. This time, I threw away the idea that it had to be super-real. I thought, "It's got to invoke the iconography of Spider-Man that people love." And that was liberating, in a way.

It's always cool at a press conference to say, "I'm going to be so grounded," but really, when you walk into the Spider-Man universe, you're walking into a dream world. There are monsters and creatures that come out from under the bed — and they are made of electricity and will kill you if they touch you. But it's also important to start from a real place. In the first movie, we got a lot of flack for retelling the origin story, and nobody really wanted me to do it. But I felt it was crucial because I wanted the audience to experience everything that Peter Parker experienced, so that their connection was fluid and deep. I thought the texture of his character was different than the Parker of Sam Raimi's movies, so I knew I had to redefine that.

Trailer movements correspond to spectacle, and the bigness of the story you're trying to tell. I don't think about it in terms of a trailer, but I want the audience to be [frick]ing thrilled. I told my friends I want to "unleash my inner Bay."

As in your inner Michael Bay?
He's a brilliant visualist who does something very few people in the world can do. In this film, there is a spectacle to things I want to embrace. If that's used in service of creating drama for that character, and exploring a physical or emotional dilemma, then it feels great.

At the keynote, you revealed some of the soundtrack: Hans Zimmer, Pharrell Williams, Mike Einziger, and Johnny Marr all worked together on the theme for Electro, played by Jamie Foxx.
I really wanted to embrace the electronic nature of Electro. I told everyone I wanted to make Skrillex throw up his arms and retire because it would be so awesome. Then Hans plays me a Henry Purcell opera from the 17th century, an aria called "The Cold Song," about a spirit that's been summoned from the cold against its will and is begging to return. There's this stuttering kind of vibrato that the character is using, and Hans immediately gravitated towards the idea that he's being electrocuted. That shiver was the electronic pulse being sent through his veins. It started off as a nod to an opera, sped it up, and it ended up as a dubstep rave track that rattles the soul with a big sub-woofer.

"We've always known that Spider-Man's most important battle has been within himself: the struggle between the ordinary obligations of Peter Parker and the extraordinary responsibilities of Spider-Man. But in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker finds that a greater conflict lies ahead.

It's great to be Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield). For Peter Parker, there's no feeling quite like swinging between skyscrapers, embracing being the hero, and spending time with Gwen (Emma Stone). But being Spider-Man comes at a price: only Spider-Man can protect his fellow New Yorkers from the formidable villains that threaten the city. With the emergence of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Peter must confront a foe far more powerful than he. And as his old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, Peter comes to realize that all of his enemies have one thing in common: OsCorp."