Thomas Haden Church and Topher Grace to be Spiderman villians.

[Ironwood]

Sigh.

[Paelos]

The unwashed geek quotient of the forum is rising rapidly based only on this thread.

You are posting on a internet message board about video games and run a christian blog. Cast not the first stone, son. Your comment was more worthless than Murgos' post.

I'm quick to point out when the videogame discussion gets retarded as well. The pure speculation in the thread of trying to compare of the world of comics to the mass market appeal of the big screen is a little over the top. At some point things start devolving into a peen-waving contest over comic knowledge rather than the fact that a certain actor has been chosen to star in a movie.

[Sky]

Maybe...but we're far from it so far. It's been a decent discussion of the various possibilities, I thought. But then, I never wave my peen (intentionally), so I guess it's hard for me to judge.

[eldaec]

Necro post 4 the win.

Rumours have been popping up everywhere over the last couple of weeks that THC will be playing Chameleon. And that GG2 will feature, but only in a minor capacity, possibly to set up for a future film.

In other spider-man related news, since this franchise is now seen in financial circles as the only thing paying for Sony Pictures, there is no way it's going to end after part 3, as was orginally envisaged by Raimi.  Following Sony's abject failure to produce a profitable film this summer, and with little hope being held out for next year (with the exception of a Bond film, now that they've taken on MGM), spider-man is seen by many as needing to bankroll almost the whole operation.

Ok, my real money is on Church as Kraven!

There is some speculation that a back story will be set up for Kraven in the same way lizard was set up in SM2.


That is all.

[HaemishM]

Raimi said at one point he wanted to do 6 Spidey films.

[eldaec]

His words were more along the lines of 'Seems Sony are going to do at least 6, hmm, I might do 4-6 after all'.

[NowhereMan]

Gotta say, I don't know if Chameleon is the best villain they could pick for a Spidey film (personally I think that the Lizard could be done really well as a darker part of the franchise) but he seems like one of the easiest to translate to the big screen.

[Ironwood]

Totally Lame.

And, hopefully, totally fake.

[Sky]

I don't even remember the Chameleon. 

[stray]

He's like Spider-Man's first villian ever. He's a Mimic/Master of Disguise, and can pretty much look like anyone he wants. Which begs the question: How much exactly of the role is Church going to play?




[edit] I'd love this if he pulls a Lon Cheney, and plays a lot of the disguises himself. If it turns out more like that Denzel movie "Fallen", then not so much.

[AOFanboi]

Raimi already did a movie with a "chameleon" kind of guy - Darkman - but that was much darker than the Spiderman movies ever will be. Unless they do something like the Ultimate Spider-Man's Carnage storyline (Basically, Carnage grows as a parasitic lifeform from Spiderman's blood and drains the blood from a lot of people then Gwen Stacy.)

But why not add some other heroes as well and not just villains? IIRC, the comic-book early Spiderman was disliked by the other heroes for misc reasons. Could lead to some amusing plot developments where either Spider-Man stops some other hero's act or the other way around.

Ooh, and how about some jealousy between MJ and Black Cat, the latter played by Drew Barrymore?

[Sky]

Ahh...Ditko! I don't think I ever read issue #1.

Spidey was great when teamed up with other heroes, great comic relief. Too bad the FF looks like an abortion, he was good with them.

[Llava]

Ooh, and how about some jealousy between MJ and Black Cat, the latter played by Drew Barrymore?

Please be joking about Barrymore.

[Pococurante]

Please be joking about Barrymore.

Agreed...

[tazelbain]

Get the woman that prayed the parole officer in Sin City.
(it was difficult to this of a actress with big breats and good)

I like Drew but she's not really bombshell material.  And MJ/BC dynamic doesn't make sense if BC isn't a bombshell.

[Fabricated]

What about the Shocker? or Rhino? :P

[SurfD]

I dont know why people seem to think that venom would be sooo hard to do in the movies.  They could actually do venom REALLY well if they spread it out over 2 movies.

I always thought that the perfect way to do venom would be to have the setup in the first move: "Jamesons son brings symbiote back from one of his trips to space, crap happens, symbiote chooses Parker as host".  Then you have an entire movie to explain what the symbiote/new suit is, how it works, what its powers are.  I seem to recall (at least in the Spiderman animated series) that the symbiote was messing with parker's mental stability (makeing him more violent/agressive). Have spidey fight a villian in that move. Maybe the Lizard (someone he cares about is good).  Spidey needs the symbiotes added strength to fight on even footing with the Lizard.  However, the aggressive nature of the symbiote causes him to nearly kill connors in the end, rather then saveing him.  Spidey forcefully ejects the symbiote.  Wrap things up, and throw in setup for sequel movie with scene of Symbiote finding Brock.

then you have everything set up for an entire movie about Venom, where you can deal with Venom and Brock's assorted issues with Spidey/Parker, and no need to worry about background, because 90% of it was already covered mostly transparently in the progress of the previous movie.

[Llava]

The problem, I think, is that you go from a movie with fun action and psuedo-science in an otherwise fairly realistic world to suddenly having space aliens.  While it works within the context of the Marvel Universe, the films don't have all this other stuff going on.  There are some stories that you just can't do because of that.

Like whether or not X-Men really goes with the whole Dark Phoenix thing, I really think it'd be asking a lot of a film audience to just accept the whole Shi'ar Empire.

[SurfD]

Nah, I would have to disagree with you there.  About the only mainstream superhero/comicbook movie franchise where aliens would be out of place would be Batman.  Pretty much any other series out there could do critters from space / galactic empries, etc with very little effort.  Hell, all you really need is a barely plausable backstory (in the case of the symbiote, who cares, I dont think anyone ever figured out what the hell it actually "was") and it works in pretty well.

I mean hell, the vast majority of the people who watch spiderman are already going to know the essentials of the character and his more well known villians / associates.  And those that dont, probably grew up with Superman (how plausible is a baby from another planet becoming earths greatest superhero anyhow? Not to mention Zod) and Wonderwoman (half Greek/Roman goddess?)   You would be surprised about exactly how far you could stretch the bounds of plausibility and not get burned for it.  All it really takes is at least a bit of believable backstory and you are set.

Now if Galactus just suddenly appeared over New York and procieded to eat skyscrapers like so much pocky, with absolutely no explanation whatsoever........

[Velorath]

There is some speculation that a back story will be set up for Kraven in the same way lizard was set up in SM2.

The Chameleon was a childhood friend, servant, and later revealed to be the half-brother, of Kraven.  He was also the one that set Kraven against Spider-man in the first place, so an appearance by Kraven would make sense if the Chameleon is in fact the villain.

[Llava]

Nah, I would have to disagree with you there.  About the only mainstream superhero/comicbook movie franchise where aliens would be out of place would be Batman.  Pretty much any other series out there could do critters from space / galactic empries, etc with very little effort.  Hell, all you really need is a barely plausable backstory (in the case of the symbiote, who cares, I dont think anyone ever figured out what the hell it actually "was") and it works in pretty well.

I mean hell, the vast majority of the people who watch spiderman are already going to know the essentials of the character and his more well known villians / associates.  And those that dont, probably grew up with Superman (how plausible is a baby from another planet becoming earths greatest superhero anyhow? Not to mention Zod) and Wonderwoman (half Greek/Roman goddess?)   You would be surprised about exactly how far you could stretch the bounds of plausibility and not get burned for it.  All it really takes is at least a bit of believable backstory and you are set.

Now if Galactus just suddenly appeared over New York and procieded to eat skyscrapers like so much pocky, with absolutely no explanation whatsoever........

I guess that's just where we differ.

I have no problem swallowing aliens in the Superman world, because he's already an alien.  The precedent has been set.  But Spider-Man?  Wonder Woman?  They're pretty out-there stories, but on a completely different scale.  With Spider-Man I expect to see super-science enhanced people, like the Green Goblin or Doc Oc, or Scorpion, just like I expect to see mutants in the X-Men films. But if mutants suddenly started showing up in Spider-Man 3, I and every other geek would start thinking "That's awesome!" whereas the average person who really doesn't know shit about comics (and with the huge audience the Spider-Man films have drawn, it's safe to say that most people going to it don't know the comics very well) will wonder, "What the hell is this?  I thought mutants were X-Men's thing.  Isn't that a different movie?  More importantly, what the hell makes Spider-Man so special if there are kids with super powers being born every other day?"

It kinda sucks, but it's almost impossible to start a chain of movies like this and throw in some huge world-changing event after the first one.  It's almost a deus ex machina.

That being said, they could just change the origin of the symbiote from "creature from outer space" to "creature from a lab".  Perhaps a super-soldier experiment by the government, though the Green Goblin kinda already touched on that.

[NowhereMan]

Hell wasn't Venom originally some super advanced sekrit thing whipped up by Reed Richards in Secret Wars? I seem to recall they thought it was some magical thing that allowed people to replace their torn costumes and allowed Spidey to stop wearing a paper bag over his head.

Seems comics can change origin stories around all the time, I don't see why they'd have to stick with the alien backstory for the symbiote. I think it could work but it would be easier for the film to have Spidey find it in an Os Corp lab or something.

[stray]

I have no problem swallowing aliens in the Superman world, because he's already an alien.  The precedent has been set.  But Spider-Man?  Wonder Woman?  They're pretty out-there stories, but on a completely different scale.  With Spider-Man I expect to see super-science enhanced people, like the Green Goblin or Doc Oc, or Scorpion, just like I expect to see mutants in the X-Men films. But if mutants suddenly started showing up in Spider-Man 3, I and every other geek would start thinking "That's awesome!" whereas the average person who really doesn't know shit about comics (and with the huge audience the Spider-Man films have drawn, it's safe to say that most people going to it don't know the comics very well) will wonder, "What the hell is this?  I thought mutants were X-Men's thing.  Isn't that a different movie?  More importantly, what the hell makes Spider-Man so special if there are kids with super powers being born every other day?"

Agreed. I don't think it's just an issue with comic adaptations though. Few people want to see that kind of thing in any movie. Myths and stories really only say something when they operate within their own little microcosm. "Dracula" is a great story when it's not "Dracula vs the Wolfman vs Frankenstein". "King Kong" is totally different thing than "Godzilla vs King Kong". Or imagine a Lethal Weapon movie with the Terminator wandering the streets of L.A. It's just not going to work ("Asta la vista Riggs!").

[Llava]

Myths and stories really only say something when they operate within their own little microcosm.

Exactly.  The comic universes can get away with this because there are a thousand stories going on at a time, each with their own subject matter, but because they all take place in the same world/universe it's more believable that one would bleed over into another.  And they've set up since the start that this is all happening in one world, whereas the films haven't set that up- as far as we know, Spider-Man is the only superhero in the world in the films.  And that's how they treat him.

[eldaec]

The alien backstory would take up too much time that would be hard to relate to Peter Parker's angst.

Fundamentally all Raimi spiderman films will (and should) breakdown the same way....

 - Titles (5 minutes)
 - Introduce the shitty aspect of PP's current life. (10 minutes)
 - Introduce future villian in non-villian form into PP's life as an inspiration to a better future. (10 minutes)
 - Science experiment goes wrong, creates super villian. (5 minutes)
 - Spider-man foils early villiany, PP gets no credit, angst increases. (25 minutes)
 - PP angst reaches critical point, everyone hates him, villian incidentally kicks spidey ass. (15 minutes)
 - Villian kidnaps MJ (10 minutes)
 - PP defeats angst, (20 minutes) oh, and incidentally kicks villian ass, rescues MJ. (10 minutes)
 - Epilogue (5 minutes)
 - Credits (5 minutes)

Total running time 120 minutes.

Note that the real villian is always PP angst. There won't be room for any interstellar politics that don't directly impact PP's angst. So sure, you could have venom, you could have aliens, but only if you could fit them alongside all the angst. You have at most 15 minutes to show the backstory of the aliens, and to make it relevant to Parker on a personal level. Go.

[Llava]

I'm not sure it has to be THAT formulaic.  Let's say the third film introduces a scientist who knows about Peter's existence as Spider-Man.  In the fourth film, he creates the symbiote to amplify Peter's powers and make like more convenient.  It would be fun and simple to create a steroids-like story from that, where Spider-Man is becoming more powerful and better at what he does, but he's losing sight of why he's doing it (becomes less interested in saving people and more interested in beating the living crap out of badguys), and really beginning to fuck up his personal life.  There might be no external villain in this film at all (except the symbiote, but in this case the symbiote appears less sentient), just entirely Peter VS Spider-Man.

Though it won't be this soon. You need to introduce a scientist who's in on Peter's secret and, possibly, another superhero who can, for example, catch an innocent falling off a building when Spider-Man ignores them to chase after the badguy.

In this formula, if there was a super villain, they'd probably be defeated quite soundly about half way through the film when Peter's angst is at its strongest and the symbiote has him at his most brutish.  The rest would be Peter coming out of it, finally shedding the symbiote at the climax.

But mostly I'd like this story to happen because I want to see how cool black Spider-Man will look in CG:

[stray]

It is that formulaic, I think. It's the only part of Spider-Man that appeals on a broad level. It's the only part of Spider-Man that Stan Lee ever really tried to build the character with (same with Hulk's Frankenstein, X-Men's Race War, Batman's Revenge, etc..). Sure, it can be condensed -- But that's exactly what makes it worthwhile in films. A medium with beginnings, middles, and ends.

Then there's the other Spidey -- Serial Medium Spider-Man. Most of it is meaningless in the context of Lee's ideas about what Parker represents. I bet if he could have gotten away back then with writing only the Peter Parker aspect, then he would have done what Raimi is doing now.

[Ironwood]

I wish everyone on the internet would shut the fuck up about Venom.

[Samwise]

I wonder if Venom could beat the Hulk in a fight.

[HaemishM]

I dont know why people seem to think that venom would be sooo hard to do in the movies.  They could actually do venom REALLY well if they spread it out over 2 movies.

Because Venom sucks as a villain, only eclipsed in shittiness by Carnage. Assclown villains, IMO. Sure they could be done cinematically, but why would you want to when he has so many other villains? Hell, I think the Vulture is a better villain for Spidey than Venom.

[Llava]

What?? How can you dislike Carnage?  He's a crazy motherfucker who just wants to kill!  He's the single most pure villain there is.  He's the absolutely standard by-the-book serial killer, given far, far more power than any human, let alone any sociopath, has a right to have.  And best of all, he never, ever has a crisis of morality.

The worst thing about Carnage, I think, is that they kept bringing him back.  Venom should have killed him at the end of the first encounter, period.  Also, he should've killed some more people who matter.

But I still liked Carnage.

[stray]

Carnage/Venom represents a period in comics that was totally lost on me. Kind of like Gambit.

[eldaec]

What?? How can you dislike Carnage?  .....  he never, ever has a crisis of morality.

Given that this is a discussion about spiderman villians, you answer your own question here.

[Sky]

Carnage/Venom represents a period in comics that was totally lost on me. Kind of like Gambit.

I totally agree. I was an Xmen fan as a kid, one of my regular subscriptions. I dropped my subs when my band went on the road and when I came home for christmas, I barely recognized the Xmen...Gambit and that chick with the hoop earings, etc.

This thread and the bit about comic geeks vs the average movie audience is timely - I just watch Spidey 2 in HD last night with my girl, and she loved hearing all the comic book stuff. And damn, that movie had some good acting. It was cool seeing it from her perspective, too.

I think comic book movies run the risk of having /too/ much history, she refuses to watch SG-1 with me because she doesn't know the backstory or who the races are.

Jury's out on Browder, but I did like Black as the rogue. I missed the season open, but this week's ep wasn't bad...better than Rodney acting girly on Atlantis imo...

[ahoythematey]

Black is a lot of fun.  Almost makes me regret not watching Farscape and it's muppets.