What Happened to The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)?
It’s been over 7 years since the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and almost 6 months since we saw him return in Spider-Man: No Way Home. But the truth is, we were going to see a lot more of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man. They originally wanted to do The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4. And do several spin-offs set in his Spider-Man universe. But after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was received all that well, plans were canceled. But why is that? Let’s get started!
What Happened to The Amazing Spider-Man 2?: In July 2012 Sony released The Amazing Spider-Man starring Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. And this was a reboot of the popular Spider-Man character. It was a successful film that received good but not reviews from audiences. In August 2011, 11 months before the movie came out Sony had set a release date for The Amazing Spider-Man in May 2014. In the pre-production for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 the script was being written by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Jeff Pinker and Sony’s plans was to create a whole Spider-Man shared universe. With multiple movies and spin-offs. So Sony demanded to tease a lot of future projects, most notably a Sinister 6 spin-off movie. Plus a female lead spin off starring Felicity Jones as Black Cat. The Amazing Spider-Man 3 had a set release date of June 10th, 2016 and the 4th movie would have been released on May 4th, 2018. With the sinister six-spinoff coming out November 11th, 2016. While The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was a successful film, it made $29.6 million more opening weekend than its first movie. And went on to make $202.8 domestically and $708.9 million worldwide through its 15 week run. But the reviews for the movie were mostly negative, so any future plans with this universe was canceled and in 2015 he was said to rebooted and join the MCU, thus Tom Holland being cast as the character.
What Was Changed?:
Jamie Foxx’s Electro: In December 2012, it was confirmed that Oscar winning actor Jamie Foxx was going to be Electro. That was great casting, he’s a world class actor and him in a comic book movie sounded awesome. But the writing for the character wasn’t really good and certain decisions about his character were really really weird and off putting. But they actually had this subplot involving Electro’s mom that was cut from the movie. They shot a scene and everything, and basically his mom was very sick and Electro was taking care of him. But it’s not said but it’s hinted that she was an abusive mother and just didn’t care about her son, and she’s in a wheelchair. After Max's transformation into Electro happens, she doesn’t care about what happened and gets a payout from Oscorp. Which this leads into the Times Square fight with the police and Spider-Man
Harry Osborn/The Green Goblin: Peter gives Harry his blood, which he didn’t do in the theatrical version of the movie. And the Goblin suit was made for Norman Osborn in the original script. But in the movie it was used for military purposes. Also, the way that Electro and Green Goblin start working together was different. In the movie, Harry Osborn breaks Electro out of Ravencroft but in the original script he breaks out with the help of Dr. Kafka, who is in the movie. Electro goes to kill Harry Osborn at Norman Osborn’s grave but at this point, Harry is already the Goblin and that is how they start working together.
Peter Parker/Spider-Man: Now there were quite a bit of changes made through-out production of this movie. In the movie, we got a tease that J. Jonah Jameson was in this universe. In the original version, we actually saw J. Jonah Jameson and he interacted with Peter Parker a bit in the movie. And they first meet when Peter turns in pictures of Spider-Man to The Daily Bugle. And when Spider-Man and Electro first fight they would have crashed through The Daily Bugle. And the aftermath of the death of Gwen Stacey was changed quite a bit. Where that little epilogue with the young boy and Rhino was added in, and that was the incident where Peter returns as Spider-Man. But in the original script, Peter was visiting Gwen’s grave and Ben Parker appears. And they talk and say he’s been watching him. And Ben tells Peter “with great power comes great responsibility” and that is the moment in which Peter decides to return as Spider-Man, and then the movie ends. Setting up The Amazing Spider-Man 3 very well.
Mary Jane Watson: And one of the big changes about this movie was that Shailene Woodley was cast as Mary Jane Watson and they filmed scenes with her and everything there are behind the scenes photos of her. And she is Peter’s new neighbor that is very clearly attracted to Peter. And before the finale Gwen meets M.J. and Gwen tells M.J. advice on how to date a person like Peter “date a nerd” is what Gwen said. And basically she would have been giving her permission to date Peter. And while M.J. is into Peter, Peter is still hung up about Gwen. And Spider-Man (not Peter) confronts M.J. 's abusive father about laying off her. And then her character would have continued into later movies. But with all that was cut from the movie, Mary Jane Watson was one of them.
Would I like to see this movie?: And the simple answer is YES. I really enjoyed the original The Amazing Spider-Man. It's one of my favorite Spider-Man movies out there. And this movie seemed to have ideas that could have made for a much better movie. And with all of the love that Andrew Garfield has been getting after Spider-Man: No Way Home maybe one day in the future, we can see this director’s cut of the movie.
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