One is a pointless rebooting of an established franchise (yet remains one of the most eagerly anticipated films currently the current Hollywood slate), the other is the third installment of a franchise that seemed tired a matter of minutes into the second film. In fairness to Marc Webb’s “Spider-Man” reboot, it’s still something we could see ourselves getting excited for, “Men In Black III” on the other hand, not so much. Both are Sony Pictures projects, and Sony have announced start dates for filming. Andrew Garfield will get his first chance to don Spidey’s suit in front of the 3D cameras in L.A. this December, while Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones will reprise their roles as Jay and Kay when filming commences in New York next month.
Hopefully this “Men In Black” movie will be better than the early buzz from the script would suggest, this writer at least passably enjoyed the original even if the sequel was all kinds of awful. Advice to director Barry Sonnenfeld — let Jemaine Clement riff and run with it, then at the very worst you’ll have a bad film with one scene-stealing character in it. Spider-Man, however, is a topic on which judgment should probably be reserved for a while. The reboot was announced following an acrimonious split with Sam Raimi, and to a reception of fanboy vitriol, but since Garfield’s casting it seems fans are far more open minded to the possibility that this just might work. “Men In Black III” opens May 25th, 2012, while Spidey swings back onto screens just over a month later on July 3rd.
Ironically, because they are both Sony projects evidently this is allowed. There’s a line in the ‘MIB3D’ script that goes something like this: “Jay picks up ‘Spider-Man 8’ off the blanket. Featuring chubby, bald 50-year-old Tobey Maguire.”