The Nerdist podcast recently interviewed Sam Raimi who directed the Spider-Man trilogy. In the interview he has some interesting quotes about the third movie. Here they are:
It’s a movie that just didn’t work very well. I tried to make it work, but I didn’t really believe in all the characters, so that couldn’t be hidden from people who loved Spider-Man. If the director doesn’t love something, it’s wrong of them to make it when so many other people love it.
“I think [simply trying to raise the stakes after Spider-Man 2] was the thinking going into it, and I think that’s what doomed us. I should’ve just stuck with the characters and the relationships and progressed them to the next step and not tried to top the bar.”
“[But] directors don’t like to talk about their bad films.” The interviewer then suggested that “bad” wasn’t the right word to describe Spider-Man 3, to which Raimi responded: “Awful!”
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Pandora
Amazon Music
iHeartRadio
Podbean
Amazon Alexa
Player.fm
Listen Notes
Stitcher
Although Spider-Man 3 is flawed, I would still put it above The Amazing Spider-Man 1 reboot film…by a lot. As others have noted above, Spider-Man 3 tried to do too much and had too many cringe worthy scenes or plot points. Dancing Peter, Gwen (why was she even in the film???), Sandman accidentally killed Ben(?), the poorly portrayed media telling us the final battle and then Peter let Sandman go? Yikes.
Yet it had some moments that worked very well. The Sandman animation when trying to regain his form, the Harry/Peter battle scene in the alley, the armored car action scene, the church scene where Eddie becomes Venom and Peter beating Harry badly with the pumpkin bomb.
If Sam hates it so much, have him pull a George Lucas and redo it. Trim out dancing Peter, replace Gwen with a minor character and that alone makes it better…
Other than casting Topher Grace as Eddie Brock and the character never being named Venom I enjoyed Spider-Man 3, way more than The Amazing Spider-Man 1 and 2.
Tobey’s a great Peter but a bad Spider-Man. Andrew’s a great Spider-Man but a bad Peter.
Hopefully they’ll find the perfect actor that can play Peter and Spider-Man next time around.
@12 I can give Spidey the benefit of the doubt on this cause even in the comics, he’s forgiven people and given them a 2nd chance when they really didn’t deserve it. Plus, in Amazing 200….he even forgave the Burglar who was again up to no good.
@9 Good point. I didn’t think much about the animated series but you’re right.
@7 Idk…I think Jamie Foxx did fine with what he was given. Gotta remember….he didn’t write the character. So, if the writers chose to make Foxx play a self-esteem deprived scientist with “mother issues” then he did a great job playing that role.
I never blamed i for Spider-Man 3. Why? Spider-Man 1 & 2.
Venom wasn’t the only guy in the movie who couldn’t keep his mask on, and Sandman killing Uncle Ben wasn’t the only wtf moment, what about at the end when Peter forgives him and just lets him go? Um…he killed Uncle Ben, robbed an armored truck, and might have killed a few security guards too, shouldn’t he have, like, gone to jail? Or something?
Personally i think which is one of the a lot material to me. With this particular contented understanding your document. Although should really feedback for some basic difficulties, The web page style is wonderful, the reports was in fact terrific : D benedict cumbatch. Good endeavor, all the best
It was a disaster. Raimi seemed to forget the basics of storytelling. The butler who’s apparently a CSI suddenly deciding to reveal how Norman died (which Raimi has said was supposed to be a hallucination), Venom’s vulnerability to sound wasn’t clear, Harry supposedly had short-term amnesia but forgot he was rich, etc.
@4 except the 90’s animated series (which Raimi clearly watched) did it in three 20 minutes episodes and it actually improved upon the original
@7 – Yes, my opinion, but I really can say Jaime Foxx was a bad Electro. His Max Dillon was one of the strangest, most tone deaf, down right silly screen performances in a comic film adaptation since Jim Carrey played the Riddler.
@6 If you watch the 2 new Amazing Spider-man films and ignore the comics….they really aren’t that bad in terms of storyline and such. Think of it as an alternate reality and focus on that. Cause can you really say Jamie Foxx was a bad Electro? Not only that….Garfield was an excellent Peter. Sure….you gotta look at the comics and say “”wtf’ about almost everything in the movies. But, watch it and just pretend you never read Spidey before in your life. Those films are not as bad as Spider-man 3 was.
@#5 If the series “needed” a good reboot after SM3, then we are still waiting.
I think that the only thing that Spider-Man 3 got right was the birth of the Sandman. That was pretty much the only scene that I actually enjoyed. It was very moving, and kept at least pretty close to the comics.
The rest of the movie ranged from laughably bad to embarrassingly cringe-worthy. From MJ’s musical number, Peter’s constant crying, the “reveal” that Sandman really killed Uncle Ben (WTF?), mugging Harry, Emo-Peter, and not one but TWO scenes where Peter dances…Ugh.
This movie did for the Spider-Man franchise what Batman and Robin did for Batman.
I think that if the studio hadn’t interfered so much, this could have been a good movie. But they rushed the production, and pushed for Raimi to include Venom, whom he has gone on record as being a character he never liked, and didn’t know how to include him…which was why he was hastily rushed on and off screen so fast that if you blinked, you missed him.
The origin of Venom frankly is a story too complicated to tell effectively in one movie, especially when so much screen time is devoted to so many other things (Sandman, Harry, MJ, etc). If they had simply focused S-M3 on Sandman (perhaps having him partner with Vulture or Electro, if the studio needed another villain), and then left us with the cliffhanger of Spidey getting the symbiote, it could have been a MUCH better movie. It also would have set Spider-Man 4 up for Spidey to reject the symbiote, creating Venom.
Either way, the series desperately needed a good reboot after this disaster.
Spider-man 3 wasn’t the worst film ever made. It’s just when we compare it to the 1st two films, there’s a huge gap in terms of quality. Not only that, but we…as comic fans, always look at the flaws in a movie based on the comics. Now, Sandman had zero to do with Uncle Ben’s death which made fans angry. But, when we look at the film as a separate entity….it wasn’t all that bad in terms of writing. That scene where Sandman first tried to make himself solid was so well done and had such emotion, that I hold it as one of the best scenes in any of the Spidey films. Now yea…Venom was a rough one to deal with in that film. The idea that they kept showing Topher’s face in the suit was plain dumb. The whole dance sequence was ridiculous. The movie was just to damn long and alot could have been cut out. Of course that’s true of just about any movie that gets made. But, the problem is to try and make the entire alien symbiote storyline followed by the possession storyline followed by “Web of Spider-man #1” followed by the entire “Sin-eater” story(to showcase Eddies fall from grace….minus Sin-eater) and Amazing 300 in 1 movie is IMPOSSIBLE. And, we saw that first hand with this film. If it was just the black suit and Sandman, it would have been much better.
“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. Maybe all it needed was a little love.”
Well, the problem with Venom is Raimi had zero interest in using him, but Sony pretty clearly forced Spider-Man 3 to have Venom be there, and have the evil costume Peter be a major part. It really should have been the culmination of the Peter/Harry story, but that just felt like it was barely hanging on in favor of Venom set-up
It wasn’t really bad at all when you think about it. They took a two-dimensional villain in Sandman and made him a sympathetic character. The action scenes were great, we finally got a variation of the black suit on the big screen. We got to see Peter and Harry get closure.
The only real problems the movie had were the dancing sequences with Peter, those were entirely unnecessary. They could have had more Venom and made him better, by having him not reveal Eddie’s face so much.
I’ve seen far worse comic movies. Green Lantern, Iron Man 2 and 3, Catwoman, Thor: The Dark World, Batman and Robin, Batman Forever, Catwoman, Superman 3 and 4, Superman Returns. And frankly, the story for Spider-man 3 was much better than The Avengers, which was basically just a mash-up of the first Thor movie (Loki trying to gain power and control), and the Transformers trilogy (fighting over a cube, wormhole in the sky, flying robots destroying a major US city, lame interaction between the main characters, lots and lots of stuff going boom).
Spider-man 3 wasn’t perfect. This is true. But people only focus on the negatives and never look at the positives. Peter finally getting closure on Uncle Ben’s death and finally confronting the real killer was a great ending to the trilogy, and Harry redeeming himself was great.
Cut the movie some slack Raimi. You’ve made far worse.