WonderCon was this weekend, and as you might have noted, all eyes were on "Prometheus," with Ridley Scott's sci-fi epic debuting about nineteen different trailers over the course of the weekend, leading the other big comic book movies that were at the fair to fight for scraps of attention. Among them: "The Amazing Spider-Man," Marc Webb's reboot of Sony's key Marvel superhero franchise.
Webb, producer Matt Tolmach and star Emma Stone took to the stage to play some footage from the new movie, which toplines Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker, who faces off against The Lizard (Rhys Ifans), and, while those clips haven't made their way online, the studio haven't been slacking entirely, with a new viral ad tied to the picture debuting online over the weekend.
Since the second stage of marketing kicked in, Sony have been cribbing heavily from the example set by "The Dark Knight," with viral games, secret screenings and whatnot, and this continues the trend: like the Anthony Michael Hall-fronted clips from Christopher Nolan's film, this takes the form of a fake news show, seemingly from a spin-off of Peter Parker's sometime employee The Daily Bugle. Dealing with the "Spider-Man on the run" aspect that seems to be a major part of what distances the film from Sam Raimi's trilogy, we get some footage of graffiti by Spidey supporters, followed by an interview with a cringing-inwardly Denis Leary, who plays Captain George Stacy, the cop tasked with tracking down the web-slinger, and wouldn't you know it, the father of Emma Stone's love interest character Gwen.
It all seems a little forced, to be quite honest, but the quality of a viral ad is in no way proportionate to the quality of a film, and we remain optimistic about this one: the second trailer was a vast improvement on the first, and the footage in the sneak screenings impressed many. We'll find out if our optimism was misplaced when the film opens on July 3rd. Watch the clip below. [Collider]