Spider-movie reboot writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein spoke with Vulture recently to promote their new movie, the National Lampoon’s Vacation reboot. During their conversation, they dropped a wee bit of Spidey info – including the fact that Spidey’s Captain America: Civil War cameo has already been filmed.
From Vulture:
Daley and Goldstein will have to contend with special effects of a different sort over the next few months, as they’ve been drafted to write Marvel’s new Spider-Man reboot. That’s still in the early stages, as Goldstein says they’re going in to Marvel this weekend to look at footage of Tom Holland’s cameo as Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War. “We hear good things,” he said. “We might even get to look at the Spidey suit, which is exciting.” Forget any rumored cast lists that have been floating around the web, however: “We’ve discussed certain characters,” said Daley, “but nothing is certain yet, for sure.”
While promoting Vacation on Grantland’s Andy Greenwald Podcast (video below, h/t: Collider) the writing duo confirmed that there would be no origin story, just as Kevin Feige announced back in April:
“I think that everybody feels like you know he got bit by a spider and you know Uncle Ben died, and we probably don’t need to revisit that.”
Daley & Goldstein did have more to say about working on Spider-Man and working for Marvel, as well as working with/for Kevin Feige. (video below)
In other Spidey news, other sites are running with the clickbait casting & costume news posted on Latino Review a couple of days ago. Casting all the parts for a script not-yet written. Found by a dude on Twitter, who saw it on Reddit. Heh.
Daley & Goldstein’s expanded Spidey & Marvel comments start at 19:45 in the video below. At one point the interviewer, Andy Greenwald, claims that Spider-Man’s rogues gallery has never been “super terrific.” Feel free to leave him views to the contrary in the video’s YouTube comments. Heh.
—George Berryman!
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
Amazon Music
iHeartRadio
Podbean
Amazon Alexa
Player.fm
Listen Notes
Stitcher
I’m more curious about, if the Civil War sequence has already been filmed, how the costume looks, or if they’ll have him in costume, or it’ll be another Mach-1 style pre-costume like they’ve done since the Raimi films.
@#13- From what I heard regarding Joss Whedon and Alien: Resurrection, yes they did “film his script,” but his script wasn’t meant to be taken seriously. It was meant to be satirical or mocking of the tone of the franchise. The filmmakers simply took it seriously.
It also doesn’t help that apparently the director didn’t speak English all that well.
But I think that’s the problem that goes into “He said, they said” sort of situations. There are a multitude of reasons why one thing works and why another doesn’t. Sometimes directors have complete control. Sometimes the studio forces them to make changes they don’t agree with (Remember Joss and the Hawkeye farm debate from Avengers 2?) Sometimes people who write films aren’t good at directing them. We don’t know.
I just think that one poor film doesn’t completely undermine everything. Their script still has to go through the studio and the directors, who might be able to make it better, or make it worse. We’ll have to wait and see.
@12 – Again, if these guys only wrote Vacation then it would probably be true that the film was changed since they provided the original script. For most films the script is written by a writer(s), submitted, and at that point the writer has no control over the finished product. It can be changed by the actors, director, or other screenwriters.
But these guys didn’t just write the movie, they wrote and directed the movie. That means the screenwriters were involved with the film during the entire process. So even if they decided to make changes to the script as they were filming it, they were the original screenwriters. They knew the script. They could add in new jokes that fit with the existing screenplay.
Also, I find it hard to believe that a studio would come to the director of a comedy and tell them “take out the funny jokes”.
At this point, Rotten Tomatoes has Vacation at 23%. Maybe this was just a fluke for these guys, maybe they’re usually funny writers. But at this point in time, I do not feel well about these two guys writing the next Spidey film.
Also, it’s funny that you mention Alien Resurrection because I bought the Quadrilogy on Bluray awhile ago and am just getting to the 4th film. In the extras Whedon says “Except for a few minor changes, they filmed my script” and one of the producers of the series (either Giler or Carrol) says “When we saw the script we said ‘This will ruin the franchise’ but they went ahead and made the movie they wanted to make.” (and he says it in a very snippy “I told you guys this would be terrible but what do I know, go do what you like, oh it failed well you should have listened to me” manner). So from that it looks like the “failure” of that movie cannot be put down to studio interference.
@9
And how do you know that they didn’t also get directives that conflicted with it being funny? Some screenwriters get handed projects like “Make a comedy where Adam Sandler is a normal guy who becomes a genie, but really he just wants to reunite with his estranged daughter.” and they’re expected to make the idea work. Other workers in the industry get relatively little creative control at all. Shoot, look at the comics industry. JMS opted to take his own name off of OMD because he felt he had nothing to do with the story that “he wrote”. Other times, the official writer who gets credit for a movie has their script edited several times by other uncredited people, so they get the surprise of seeing a fundamentally different picture with their name in the “written by” column.
Have you ever had a job where your boss insisted you do things in a way fundamentally detrimental towards achieving your goal? If not, consider yourself extremely fortunate.
Remember, Joss Whedon wrote Alien: Resurrection.
Now, again, this is not to say I think they’re great. I’ve seen literally none of their projects (a few episodes of Bones and all of Freaks and Geeks notwithstanding). Just that their failure with a formulaic hollywood remake is not necessarily indicative of their overall abilities. Especially considering that just as lousy studio interference can ruin a project before it starts, great studio support and guidance can make a project soar. Marvel has a surprisingly strong track record so far, and I don’t see them using a script handed in that absolutely cannot work.
My big question mark for this whole thing is the Marvel/Sony production relationship. Its an unusual circumstance and can derail the project pretty badly if there are major disagreements for this thing.
@10 – That’ll be the tagline on the poster.
SPIDER-MAN
IT DOESN’T INCLUDE THE ORIGIN
I love that they STILL have to insist that “WE WON’T BE RETELLING THE ORIGIN AGAIN!!!”
@7 – For a comedy, I’m sure the studio directive was “Make a funny movie”. From the reviews I’ve read, they didn’t seem to do that.”
@7 – “Again, that really depends on what they were tasked to do when given the job. They may have successfully made the EXACT film they were asked by the studio to create. ”
Precisely, and this is pretty much the same directive given to them by Feige. Even before the writers were announced, even before they’d started work on a script, Marvel was quite clear that Spider-Man would be a teenager, would have a John Hughes tone, would not retell the origin and would face a villain that hadn’t been used before.
Then again it’s also possible that this was the direction they pitched to Marvel to get the job and Marvel decided on that course while in negotiations with the writers.
@6
Again, that really depends on what they were tasked to do when given the job. They may have successfully made the EXACT film they were asked by the studio to create. Studios hire people who will make what the studio wants them to make. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re “good” writers/directors, but they don’t have nearly the length of a writing career required to parse the difference between writing/directorial style, and project type.
Re: The Spidey rogue’s gallery comment
I think this has a lot to do with the bulk of the roster being created in the Silver Age. That style of character design just rubs some people the wrong way.
@5 – True, there have been many movies written by great writers that are turned into terrible movies because of other forces. But these two are not just the writers of Vacation, they are the directors too. So I would say they are due their fair share of any negative reviews.
One bad movie does not a career make though, and hopefully by the time “Whatever Spider-Man” comes out this Vacation movie will be a distant memory and I will be more optimistic. But for this week, it doesn’t feel good.
@4 – Negative reviews of a film aren’t necessarily indicative of a film’s writing though. You can take a great script and have it ruined through direction and casting. It’s true the other way, too – there are films in which no amount of acting can save a terrible script. *cough*ASM2*cough*
This same duo also wrote the first Horrible Bosses movie, which did well at the box office and garnered positive reviews. They did not write the sequel, and it wasn’t as successful and did not enjoy as much critical praise. Daley & Goldstein also wrote the sequel to Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, which also performed well and got positive reviews. Vacation may simply be a case of them writing for the studio’s desires and instincts.
I remain cautiously optimistic and even curious. 😎
@1 – Yeah, before the Vacation reviews started coming in, the news that these two had been hired to write Spidey was … cautious optimism? Now it’s like “oh boy, what are we in for?”
@2 –
Were they talking to Vulture to see if he’s free for the next movie?
Every review I’ve read says that Vacation is horrible.