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"I gave him an equation... that made all of this possible. Something my father had been working on, you know. Secretly. Now I realize why he kept it a secret. Point is, this is my responsibility. I have to fix it."
Peter Parker to Gwen Stacy

The Amazing Spider-Man is a 2012 superhero film based on the Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. It is the first installment in The Amazing Spider-Man film series. Directed by Marc Webb, the film stars Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Emma Stone as Gwendolyne Stacy, Rhys Ifans as Curt Connors/Lizard, Denis Leary as George Stacy, Martin Sheen as Ben Parker, and Sally Field as May Parker. The film was released on July 3, 2012.

The film spawned one sequel: The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which was released on May 2, 2014. This film was intended to spawn two more sequels: The Amazing Spider-Man 3 and 4 in 2018. Using the concept of the multiverse, the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie Spider-Man: No Way Home features the return of Andrew Garfield and Rhys Ifans as Spider-Man and Lizard respectively.

Synopsis

Abandoned by his parents and raised by an aunt and uncle, teenager Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield), AKA Spider-Man, is trying to sort out who he is and exactly what his feelings are for his first crush, Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). When Peter finds a mysterious briefcase that was his father's, he pursues a quest to solve his parents' disappearance. His search takes him to Oscorp and the lab of Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans), setting him on a collision course with Connors' alter ego, the Lizard.

Plot

Richard Parker leaves

While playing hide and seek with his father, Richard, young Peter Parker stumbles upon his father's study, which was ransacked by unknown perpetrators. After Richard saw the study himself, he left home with his wife Mary and Peter, along with some of his documents. Richard and Mary left Peter to the care of his aunt May and uncle Ben, and then left to continue their research. Under the care of Ben and May, and without a word from both of his parents, Peter grew into a teenager, enrolled in Midtown Science High School.

Peter with his camera

There, he was somewhat of an outcast, and was continuously bullied by a stereotypical jock, Eugene "Flash" Thompson, who knocked Peter down for defending a fellow student that he was picking on. After the beating, Peter became acquainted with Gwen Stacy, who admired Peter's act of bravery. Peter was immediately interested in her. After class, Peter went home for lunch, and helped his uncle Ben in fixing a broken pipe down in his basement. Ben went back upstairs later and Peter found an old, suspicious suitcase. He brought it upstairs to ask about it, and his uncle said the case was his dad's and that he should look inside. Peter went straight to his room and started investigating the suitcase.

Peter sticks to the subway ceiling

After a thorough inspection, he found more of his father's notes and belongings, including a pair of glasses and a notebook that detailed a formula: the Decay Rate Algorithm. Ben came to Peter's room and confronted him about his findings, trying to comfort Peter about his parents. He also revealed the name of his father's co-worker, Dr. Curtis Connors. After Ben left, Peter immediately searched the Internet for information about Richard and Connors' work, which lead him to the discovery of his parent's death due to a plane crash. Continuing his search on Connors' alone, Peter was able to locate him at Oscorp Industries' famous tower and decided to go there. Peter sneaks into Oscorp, posing as one of the interns (causing the actual intern to get dragged out of Oscorp), and locates Dr. Connors. Peter manages to sneak inside the biocable lab by shoulder surfing the combination lock's sequence. A moment of curiosity leads to Peter touching the webs, causing all of the spiders to fall. Many land on him, which Peter quickly brushes off. However, he didn't notice one of the modified spiders on his back until it bites him shortly thereafter once he regroups with Gwen. After this, his whole life changes. Peter starts gaining spider-like powers (i.e. the ability to stick to walls). On the subway ride home, he embraces these powers by accidentally knocking out some street thugs. The next morning, he nearly wrecks his aunt's bathroom with his super strength by accidentally breaking things.

Peter and Flash play basketball

Later at school, Peter humiliates Flash in a one-on-one basketball game by repeatedly teasing him to steal the ball and ends up breaking the basketball ring with his slam dunk. As a result, Uncle Ben must change work shifts and asks Peter to pick up his aunt from work later that night. As Uncle Ben leaves, Peter is met up by Gwen, who was waiting for them to finish talking. Peter awkwardly makes plans with Gwen after which exams his new powers together with his skateboard. Instead of picking up Aunt May like he promised, Peter forgets and goes back to Oscorp Tower to help Dr. Connors create a serum that Connors would soon call the "Lizard Serum"; a recipe to help regenerate lost limbs from any species, humans included. Peter aids Connors in testing the serum on a small lab rat with three legs. Shortly after the rat is injected with the serum, the rat regrows another limb, completing its leg set. Connors is amazed at what has just transpired and believes he's made an enormous breakthrough in all of Oscorp history. Connors thanks Peter for his help and Peter walks home. At home, Uncle Ben waits on the porch. Peter wonders why and his uncle tells him he forgot to pick up his aunt from work. Peter states he just forgot, but his uncle ignored this and ordered Peter to apologize to May. Inside, May tells Peter he doesn't need to worry about it, but Ben says that May had to walk home alone in the dark. Eventually, the conversation gets serious and emotional as Peter asks where his father is. Ben thinks this is out of line, but Peter is being serious. With nothing more to say, the teenager storms out of the apartment, shattering the front door's glass with his super strength. Ben tries to stop him, but May reassures him that Peter will be back.

Somebody call an ambulance

He walks from there to a general goods store and tries to buy a carton of chocolate milk for his aunt, but he's two cents too short to complete its purchase, so he's asked to step out of line. Peter argues that it's only two cents and the cashier states, "It's not my problem." He takes the milk carton and sets it on the front desk as Peter starts to leave. The next customer, however, topples a product display tower on the desk to distract the cashier for a few moments to steal a couple of bank notes. Once the cashier realizes what is going on, he asks Peter for help. Peter replies, "It's not my problem," and the thief throws Peter the milk. Outside of the store, Uncle Ben has been searching for Peter since he left, but he is suddenly shot by the thief, who escapes immediately after. Peter hears the commotion and finds his uncle, lying wounded on the sidewalk. Peter kneels next to his injured uncle and screams for help, but nobody answers.

DF-07045

Enraged, Peter dresses himself in sunglasses and a red ski mask and searches New York City for his uncle's killer. He finds a few suspicious thugs that start chasing him through dark alleys. With his new found powers, Peter quickly scales a wall and gets to the roof of a building. He starts jumping from building to building but eventually falls through a torn roof into an abandoned Mexican wrestling stadium. He checks around for thugs, but only finds one thing of interest to him: a Luchador poster. This inspires him to make a better mask and even a costume. Peter heads home to search the Internet for a type of fabric he can create into a costume. All he can find is the material of spandex and decides to create his new costume out of that. After that, he notices his bodily web and wonders if he can use it to his advantage to find the killer. So, he creates what he calls "Web-Shooters" out of old watches. Later, Gwen invites Peter to her house for dinner.

Peter and Gwen kiss

Peter crawls up Gwen's building at night and finds her room outside the scaffolding. The two meet on the room and Peter very hesitantly tells Gwen he needs to reveal something. After a few tries, Gwen turns around and walks forward a little, but Peter shoots a web at her back and pulls her, spinning her into his arms. The two kiss for the first time on the roof and Gwen deduces Peter is Spiderman.

Dr connors gets a new arm

Then, at Oscorp Tower, scientist Dr. Rajit Ratha demands that Dr. Connors start human trials before he loses his job. A desperate Connors with no other human test subject than himself injects himself with the serum and is able to regenerate his missing right arm but starts to become a human-lizard hybrid. He recorded a video of this in his office at Oscorp. Connors, now as what people referred to as the "Lizard", tries to intercept Ratha at the Brooklyn bridge, tossing car by car over the bridge and eventually causing a huge fire. After he found Ratha, he picked up his car and threw it over the bridge along with the others. Peter saves each passenger and their car with his rope-like webbing, most notably a child by bringing him back up to the bridge and reuniting him with his father. His father asks who Peter is, and Peter pauses, then replies, "Spider-Man." The next day, Peter realizes that Connors was working on cross-species genetics and wanted badly to regrow his arm. Therefore, he suspects that Connors is the Lizard and goes to the police department to tell Captain Stacy, Gwen's father, about his suspicions. Stacy thinks this is a joke, as Connors is Gwen's mentor and would never do anything to put her in danger. So, Stacy has Peter removed from his office, but asks his employees to find everything they can on Dr. Curt Connors after he's gone.

Sewer gallery

Peter goes home to talk to his aunt, only to find that she's having trouble financially. Peter, wanting to help her, buys a cheap camera and decides to take pictures of the city's new hero, Spider-Man, and sell them to newspaper companies; most primarily, the Daily Bugle. Peter hears word of Connors in the sewers and decides to dress up as Spider-Man to see if he can take pictures of himself fighting off the beast. He places the camera up on the wall with web and sits for hours in a large sewer room with many different webs going through various tunnels, in order to, if there was anything in the tunnels, feel the vibration of the figure. The first vibe he feels is from small rats, but eventually, the Lizard approaches and Spider-Man is thrown into the sewers' filthy waters. Connors quickly forgets about the masked teenager and finds a suspicious camera webbed up on the wall. He grabs the camera and turns it around to reveal the writing, "PROPERTY OF PETER PARKER". The Lizard crushes that camera, now discovering Spider-Man's true identity.

Lizard roars

The Lizard now searches for Peter in school. Once he enters the halls, all the students flee, except Peter and Gwen. Peter tells Gwen to leave so she's not in danger, and then he equips his Spider-Man attire. The two fight for minutes in the school, and Spidey finally completely covers the monster in webbing. In response to hearing about this, Captain Stacy launches a manhunt for both Spider-Man and Lizard. That night, Stacy's police squad are able to capture Spider-Man in the street. He is forced to sit on the ground, hands tied, and listen to Stacy. Stacy wants to remove the mask to find out who the "hero" is before he puts him behind bars. However, when he pulls the mask off, Peter moves fast and is able to beat the whole squad, leaving him and the Captain for a face-off.

Lizard and lizard gas

Peter, still unmasked, tells Stacy that his daughter is in trouble at Oscorp Tower and that Lizard plans in making all citizens of New York human-lizard hybrids like him by releasing a chemical cloud from atop Oscorp Tower's highest antennae. So, at Oscorp Tower, the Lizard enters Oscorp's Bio-Lab to retrieve the Lizard Serum. Gwen was there prior to his attendance, but she was hiding in the vents. Once the Lizard arrived and found Gwen, she, out of reaction, sprayed him with a small flame. This didn't affect Connors at all, so the Lizard acquired the Serum and left for the roof. Finally, on top of the roof, the Lizard attempts to climb to the antennae, but Spider-Man, with the antidote, sprays the Lizard, freezing his arm and stopping him briefly. Captain Stacy appears and, with his shotgun, aims and shoots at the Lizard's frozen limb, causing it to break and fall into pieces. The beast quickly regrows the limb and starts the climb again. After a few more tries, Spider-Man eventually changes the Serum cloud into an antidote cloud, but not before the Lizard fatally claws Captain Stacy. All hell breaks loose and the giant antennae falls, almost bringing Peter along with it until the Lizard finally regains Connors' sense and reaches out to help the teen. He uses his right arm, but that quickly dissolves as Lizard turns back into Connors, so he uses his left. Peter reaches the roof and joins the Captain for his last moments. Stacy's dying wish was that Peter stay away from Gwen for her own safety.

Man in the shadows

At Stacy's funeral, everyone appears except Peter, who is saddened by Stacy's wish. The next day, Gwen approaches Peter's aunt and uncle's house to confront him about his absence at her father's funeral. Peter doesn't say a word, so Gwen figures her dad asked Peter to promise him to stay away from her and runs home. Days later, at school, Peter is slacking off in an assignment, but he assures the teacher he'll get the job done. The teacher tells Peter not to make promises he can't keep, and Peter whispers to Gwen, sitting in front of him, "But those are the best kind." Gwen smiles because this hints that they will be together in the months to come.

Shortly after this, the initial credits roll, and the film is believed to be over. However, this is not the case. In the post-credits scene, Connors, now in a mental institute and fired from Oscorp for his acts as the Lizard, speaks with a mysterious person who asks if he told Peter the truth about his father. Connor replies "No," and demands Peter be left alone. Lightning flashes and the man in the shadows is gone. Possibly, the man could've been an illusion all along.

Cast

Amazing Suit from MSM2 render - 2023-12-03T062248

Andrew Garfield plays the titular character in the film.

Leif Gantvoort plays the burglar who robs the convenience store and then kills Uncle Ben, and Michael Barra plays T-Bone, the store clerk. Tom Waite plays Nicky, a thug whom Peter mistakes for his uncle's killer. Hannah Marks portrays Missy Kallenback, a shy girl who has a crush on Peter[1]. Kelsey Chow's brief role is simply credited as "Hot Girl" during the end credits of the film, but the actress revealed to media outlets around the time of the film's release that her character is in fact Sally Avril[2]. Similarly, C. Thomas Howell's character is credited as "Jack's Father" at the end of the film (Jack being a boy that Spider-Man rescues on the Williamsburg Bridge) but he is referred to as Troy by one of his fellow construction workers in the film itself. Unlike the previous films, J. Jonah Jameson does not appear[3]. Spider-Man co-creator Stan Lee has a cameo appearance, as he did in the previous films[4]. Michael Massee, who previously worked with Marvel as Dr. Bruce Banner in the Ultimate Avengers animated film series, plays the mysterious man in the shadows who talks with Connors in his prison cell in a teaser scene during the end credits[5]. In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, the character was revealed to be Gustav Fiers. [6]

Kari Coleman, Charlie DePew, Skyler Gisondo and Jacob Rodier portray the Stacy family: Helen Stacy, Philip Stacy, Howard Stacy, and Simon Stacy respectively.

Production

Following the release of Spider-Man 3 (2007), Sony Pictures Entertainment had announced a May 6, 2011, release date for Sam Raimi's next film in the earlier series. By this time, screenwriters James Vanderbilt, David Lindsay-Abaire and Gary Ross had written several rejected versions of a script and Ziskin's husband Alvin Sargent, who co-wrote the second and third films, was working on yet another attempt. Raimi wanted John Malkovich to play his next villain.[7] However, on January 11, 2010, Columbia Pictures and Marvel Studios announced that rather than continue the earlier saga, they were rebooting the series with a new cast and crew. Industry reports claimed that Raimi had admitted that he could not meet the scheduled release date and retain creative integrity. Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach and Ziskin continued as producers.[8]

Arad later explained, "We were working on what we called Spider-Man 4 and it was the same team [as with the first three films]. The problem was we didn't have a story that was strong enough and warranted ... another movie. And Sam Raimi ... realized we [didn't] have a good reason to make another one. And between [him] and Tobey and obviously the studio, we all went into it not feeling good about the next story."[9] Tolmach said one reason to restart the series was that the producers felt the core Spider-Man story was that of a boy becoming a man.[10] Screenwriter Steve Kloves did a polish of Sargent's script, saying he had originally declined the opportunity to do so but relented "as a favor" to the filmmakers. "I also really wanted to write for Emma Stone, because I like to write for women and I particularly like Emma," he explained. "So ...I did basically character and dialogue, and that was enjoyable for me. So that was my hand in it. And I did a little plot work, but a lot of the plot was done." He did "a little bit" of dialog for Peter Parker / Spider-Man.[11] In April 2012, writer-director Paul Feig said that Webb "invited me on set, and I did a little bit of writing for that movie, for one of the high school scenes".[12]

Days after announcing Raimi's departure, the studio announced that Webb, whose previous film 500 Days of Summer was his directorial debut, would direct the reboot.[13] Kathryn Bigelow and David Fincher were considered to direct the film.[14]Tolmach, now president of Columbia Pictures and Amy Pascal, co-chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said they looked for a director who could give sharp focus to Parker's life.[13] Webb said he "was a little sceptical at first—you feel the presence of those other movies. But then I was like, 'How could I walk away from this? What an opportunity!'"[15] Webb said in the press release announcing him that, "Sam Raimi's virtuoso rendering of Spider-Man is a humbling precedent to follow and build upon. The first three films are beloved for good reason. But I think the Spider-Man mythology transcends not only generations but directors as well. I am signing on not to 'take over' from Sam. That would be impossible. Not to mention arrogant. I'm here because there's an opportunity for ideas, stories, and histories that will add a new dimension, canvas, and creative voice to Spider-Man."[13] Webb felt Spider-Man is different from the Harry Potter franchise, which is based on a few novels and "more like James Bond" because "there's so much material in Spider-Man that there are so many stories to tell and so many characters."[16] He described the film as "not a remake" explaining that "we're not making Sam's movie again. It's a different universe and a different story with different characters.[17]

Videos

Trailers

Interviews

Trivia

  • At the 2011 Dallas Comic Con, Stan Lee revealed that made a cameo in the movie: an unnamed librarian listening to headphones while stamping books and dancing at the same time, despite the on-going fight between Spider-Man and The Lizard behind him, of which he is unaware.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man, unlike previous Spider-Man movies, focuses on Peter Parker's relationship with Gwen Stacy, his high school sweetheart, rather than his next love, Mary Jane Watson.
    • Also unlike previous media, Peter will create a new, never-before-seen suit for his alter ego. Marc Webb said that he "wanted the suit to look like it was made by a teenager".
  • Tobey Maguire, previous portrayer of Spider-Man from the Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man films, said that he was excited for Garfield's performance, despite many fans' first thoughts that he wasn't.
  • An easter egg in this movie will feature "something in Spider-Man's room that relates to his music or television taste", as said by Donald Glover. The easter egg itself is a poster of Donald Glover on his wall.
  • Many scenes were cut from the movie, one of which featured Dr. Ratha, Spider-Man, and the Lizard in the sewer lab. This caused a lot of controversy because this is the scene that had many people excited about the "untold story" theme, and included Dr. Ratha's quote: "Do you think what happened to you, Peter, was an accident? Do you have any idea what you really are?" Many people wonder if this scene was cut in response to negative reaction of fans because of Peter's new origin, therefore changing the planned origin, or if it was cut so that not much of Peter's new origin is revealed in the first movie.
  • Gwen Stacy has the novel Seabiscuit in the film. Seabiscuit was turned into a film in 2003 and featured Tobey Maguire.
  • It is skeptical that the Blu-Ray release's "A Different Fate" deleted scene will deal more into the lives of Peter's parents.
  • Besides Campbell Scott as Richard Parker, the film also features a small appearance by actress Jill Flint, who along with Scott appeared in the USA Network TV Series Royal Pains.

References

Logo the amazing spider man 2 official logo by lunestavideos-d6e0cgh
The Amazing Spider-Man Wiki has a collection of images and media related to The Amazing Spider-Man.

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