Worried that, like “X-Men: Days Of Too Many Characters,” Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is overflowing with too many villains and characters? Well, for one, the producers know this too and they cut out the role of Mary Jane Watson (played by Shailene Woodley) from the film, to save the character for the third film (more on that in a sec). And as for the various villains that could build to the Sinister Six (Of Too Many Antagonists In One Movie), fear not, Webb says Electro (Jamie Foxx) is the focus of the sequel while The Rhino’s (played by Paul Giamatti) appearance may be smaller than expected.
“I’ll tell you that the main villain in this movie is Electro,” Webb told MTV when asked about the concern of character overcrowding. “These movies are sort of on-going, and there are hints and teases of what’s going to unfold in the future, but we were very focused on that simple conflict between Spider-Man and Electro. Electro is, to me, a really captivating and interesting villain because at this point, Spider-Man is really good at being Spider-Man. There is a level of virtuosity that is really fun to make and really fun to watch. Those abilities need to be challenged.”
So it sounds like several characters who are known to be villains are introduced in the movie, but you may not really see them in action until ‘AMSP3’ or ‘AMSP4.’
“There’s always been a plan to extend this universe,” Webb told Movies.com. “To make a series of films that were interrelated and weren’t purely episodic. That there were certain ongoing stories that were going to play out over multiple films. So, that’s always been in the works and there’s been some early talks about the nature of what those next two movies are. It’s too early to talk about too many of the details, but if you pay attention to this film that’s coming out, you may get a feeling and sense of what’s to come in the future.”
And apparently that fourth film will have something special in it (the full-blown Sinister Six?). “The fourth one was a little bit of a surprise,” Webb admitted. “We always talked about there being a set of three movies, but there may be elements that expand outside Spider-Man that could fulfill that fourth film.”
As for Woodley and her Mary Jane role; why was it cut? Evidently it crowded the movie and was a fairly small part to begin with.
“Mary Jane was in four scenes— four scenes in the whole film, and it didn’t make sense,” Woodley told Movies.com (see the video below). “They’re introducing so many new characters; it really didn’t make sense to introduce such a vital character to the comic books in a movie that had so much else going on, so they’re holding off for future films.” Woodley won’t even be coming back to reprise the role in the third film. Why? Well, for one she’s likely going to be busy with “The Divergent” series if it does take off like the studios hope and then there’s just the fact that “The Amazing Spider-Man 3” is a ways off from shooting, has no script and it’s unclear if she’ll be available by then. “Well, it wouldn’t make sense, there’s no screenplay for it, by the time they shoot it it’ll be so many years from now,” she said. “But it’s not a bad thing, [people look at it] like a negative thing, but it wasn’t and I think it was a very smart move on Sony’s behalf.”
There you go, Woodley is either super mature or very media trained (or both). As for those specious talk of Colm Feore playing the Vulture in “Amazing Spider-Man 2,” well, you can cross that off the list cause Webb himself debunked this rumor. Another plus about this sequel? Hans Zimmer is apparently composing the score. The Amazing Spider-Man 2″ lands in theaters May 2, 2014 and we’ll surely be hearing more about it this weekend at Comic-Con.