So another day… another bit of Amazing Spider Man news which is not that he will in face be appearing in the Avengers2, the news we do have is Chris Cooper will be playing Spidey’s answer to Ernst Stavro Bolfeld, Head of Oscorp industries and all round bad egg, Norman Osborn.
One of my favourite elements of the first ASM movie is the way the film handles Oscorp and Norman Osborn. In the original 2002 Spiderman movie the Oscorp company was never convincing as a real place, all we saw of it was a couple of scary exterior shots and a room where some people are doing sciency stuff. Now after ASM1 we know Oscorp is somewhere which focuses on biology to enhance human life and potencial. I loved the way Norman was shown in that film as well, i.e. not shown at all, I love my supervillains to have at least some mystery behind them, I hope we still don’t fully understand Norman until ASM3 at least.
On that that point I’ll comment on how I think these movies will progress, currently it seems the sequel currently has villains a plenty with Electro and Rhino with Norman, personally I can imagine in this movie Electro will be Norman’s henchman, Rhino will be a standalone villain (maybe helped by Norman) and Norman may only become Goblin by the third act when we’ll say bye bye to Gwen. Then Goblin will be the chief villain in ASM3, maybe leading the Sinister Six? I feel Gwen should die in ASM2 as we all know it’s coming, she’s not going to last much longer, we’re pretty much now just waiting for her to go. I just hope the film doesn’t turn the Peter, Gwen & MJ story into a love triangle (urgh) Peter and MJ should be just friends in ASM2 which becomes something else at the end of ASM3 (just a hint) and if they do ASM4 then we can see the relationship become something real. I expect Norman to survive ASM2, we'll have to see how long he survives after that but I do like a supervillain.
Now I will have to confess something, I don’t read comic books (please don’t hurt me angry nerdy people) so there’s one thing I’m wondering, why does Norman Osborn, super smart, successful business man with a son, dress up like a goblin and cackle, does he go through experiments like the 2002 Spider Man film which turn him a little nutty, or was he already nutty?? Please answer in comments… without hate please.
But what of the man who will embody the great Norman… well it’s note Michael Masse (was he 100% playing Norman in those end credits?) but it’s Chris Cooper… and my instant reaction… “Well… errr… okay… he was good in errr… The Town he was good but wasn’t in it much…” Personally I wasn’t too keen, my issue being I like seeing actors who you don’t think about saying these sorts of roles playing them and rocking them, Tom Hiddleston, Jeff Bridges, Chris Eccleston. With Chris Cooper all I could think was that I haven’t seen him in a role where he isn’t playing a fairly mean spirited or damaged man, when I see him playing the role on screen before he becomes Goblin I can imagine myself thinking, 2it’s good, but he does this same performance a lot”.
I’ll make the point now that I am more interested in seeing Norman Osborn than the Green Goblin, I like origin stories and dark characters. When I thought about who I wanted to see in this role I wanted an actor with more gravitas, someone who commanded the screen without doing anything. My pick was Ed Harris, he’s big, he’s a good age, he’s an extraordinary actor, and my good he can be scary while be very subtle. I don’t get that with Chris Cooper, although I feel this could still work in his favour, as the man who works more in the shadows and can come across as more friendly when meeting people.
I’m not going to go on for much longer, I’ll wrap up by saying I have not condemned Chris Cooper’s performance yet, I’ve been happily surprised before by others so I’ll wait and see what the result is. I just hope when he does a Goblin laugh I won’t be picturing him in the Muppets “Maniacal laugh, maniacal laugh”
Please comment any feedback you have or if you disagree with any of my points
P.S. We’d all happily sleep with Shailene Woodley… just saying
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