James Franco has previously criticized the decision to reboot the Spider-Man franchise so quickly after Sam Raimi's third and final entry in the series, and in an op-ed for Vice.com the actor has a little more to say on the matter. Franco attended a screening of Man Of Steel so he could give his take on it, and while he seems to have loved the film, he reveals that he went incognito because he feels there might be some tension between he and Henry Cavill after working on Tristan And Isolde together! Here are the relevant excerpts.
On The Amazing Spider-Man:
"I too have been in comic-book films—the Spider-Man trilogy directed by Sam Raimi. I mention the director because this distinction is now necessary in the wake of the new Spider-Man series that arose even before there was time to bury the corpse of the old one and enshroud it in the haze of nostalgia. Indeed there are still young children who approach me as fans of the original (boy, it seems weird to say that) series. I don’t have a huge emotional attachment to the Spider-Man franchise as a subject, my biggest sentimental ties are to the people I worked with on those films: Sam, Toby, Kirsten, the late and great Laura Ziskin, and the hundreds of others who worked with us. I don’t really feel much distress over its being remade, for many reasons, but what is interesting to me is that it has been remade so quickly—and the reasons why. The answer is, of course, money."
On Possible Bad Feelings Between He And Cavill
“Years ago we worked on a film together called Tristan and Isolde. I played Tristan and he played my backstabbing sidekick. My hunch is that he didn’t like me very much. I don’t know this for certain, but I know that I wouldn’t have liked myself back then because I was a difficult young actor who took himself too seriously.”
His Thoughts On Man Of Steel
"So, what did we watch? A great film.....Man of Steel is great because it delivers everything it should. It made Superman cool again. It delivered great action and interesting characters with a plot that was grounded enough to make us care a little....We love these movies because they’re so big, and damn, they’re all that we have. They aren’t going away, so we just have to keep hoping that they are, at the very least, well made."
What do you guys think? Is Franco right? There's no denying that
TASM was VERY similar to Sam Raimi's first
Spider-Man, while arguably not really improving on any aspects. Anyway, click on the link below for Franco's thoughts in full -- including a story about how passionate Henry Cavill was about playing Superman all those years ago when working with Franco.
About The Author:
Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.