Last night, while we were on the press line at the premiere of The Amazing Spider-Man, the film’s director Marc Webb took one look at our brand new microphone, and described it as, ‘the oddest microphone I’ve ever seen’. We don’t know if Webb reads HeyUGuys or not, but if he does, he’d probably be amused to find out that the mic isn’t only odd looking, but actually more than a bit useless.
Sadly, while our video looks lovely, and our interviews went pretty well, they’re almost inaudible, filled with the noise of on stage interviews and loud music, broadcast for the benefit of the crowd, from the speakers that were pointed directly at us.
But fear not, for while some may simply give up, we’re made of sterner stuff at HeyUGuys. Over the course of the last few hours, we’ve been listening to the awful, awful audio, and picking out the questions and answers from out red carpet interviews. So, for your reading pleasure, below are the transcripts of our chats with Emma Stone, Andrew Garfield, Marc Webb, and producer Matthew Tolmach. We also interviewed Avi Arrad, but sadly the bad audio, combined with Arrad’s thick Israeli accent, meant that even after several hours, we couldn’t get anywhere with it.
Still, we do have Garfield professing his love for Marvel movies, Webb talking Ultimate Spider-Man and Tolmach explaining why they decided to bring Orci and Kurtzman on for Amazing Spider-Man 2. And to make it even more exciting, we’ve included some screen caps from the videos. If you look carefully at the ones of Emma Stone, you can see the exact moment where she falls in love with me.
And as a side note, if you can think of an amusing, film-based nickname for our new former microphone, feel free to make suggestions in the comments below.
EMMA STONE
In previous Spider-Man films, the female leads have been quite passive. Gwen is most definitely not.
Yes. Gwen is a true equal of Peter Parker.Yeah.
Was that expected when you signed on for the movie?
I think it was expected, because she was like that in the comics too. She’s a pretty special first love.
ANDREW GARFIELD
You’re a fan aren’t you?
I’ve loved Spider-Man since I was three years old, so it’s overwhelming.
As a fan, where would you like to see the series go next?
I don’t know. I think we need to get this one out and about, and then we need to move on and work really, really hard on the second one, if we get the chance [to make it]
They’ve announced the date it’s going to be released, haven’t they?
Yeah,
So presumably you’re on it?
I can’t think about that. This is too much right now, and what’s happening at this very moment.
How would you feel if something could be worked out between Sony and Disney to get Spidey into an Avengers movie?
If they’ll have me, I’m in. I’d love to do that. I loved that first Avengers film, it was incredible. I’m a big fan of all things comic book, and all things Marvel.
Were you anything like Peter Parker at school?
I felt like I was Peter Parker.
Were you a wallflower or a heartthrob?
I could be a wallflower, I was never a heartthrob. Anyone who considers themselves a heartthrob needs to be smacked.
MARC WEBB
That is the oddest microphone I’ve ever seen.
Thanks.
Do you mind if we get a little bit geeky?
Geek on. Empire State University?
Well actually, I was going to say that it feels to me very much like an Ultimate Spider-Man movie
I looked at a lot of the art of Mark Bagley, and I think what Brian Bendis has done is really interesting, so there was definitely an influence there.
And I think tonally, it’s very different from the Raimi ones. Particularly in the high school scenes, there was a hint of 500 Days of Summer in there.
Yeah, I suppose. I thought it was really just a natural sense of reality, trying to put that into a big, huge movie. Find some moments of intimacy and reality. And of course, Andrew and Em were so good at that.
Isn’t it a bit weird going from something so small and independent, to an action blockbuster?
I think Spider-Man is a small, indie film, wrapped in a massive action feature. That’s what makes the characters exciting is the reality.
MATTHEW TOLMACH
Amazing Spider-Man has a very different tone, and a very different style to the previous films
Very different, and that was the thing that from day one Marc Webb talked about. He wanted to make a Spider-Man movie that lived in our world, that lived in a real world. The word that he uses is ‘gravity’, ‘I want to make a movie with gravity’. It’s got emotional gravity, and physical gravity. Yes it’s got a nine-foot lizard running around, but other than that, it’s totally real. And I think the attitude of the characters, the world changes all the time, and this Peter Parker, is a very different animal to the one we’ve seen before.
And you have a date for the sequel already.
We have one coming out May of [twenty] fourteen.
Is that not making a really hard job for yourself?
Yes. I’m glad you acknowledge that. From the very beginning we looked at this as more than one movie, we always knew, so we’ve been working on a story already, as we’ve been working on this movie, so we got a good jump on it. But we’re betting on this thing, because we believe in it.
You’ve brought on Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman for the sequel, haven’t you?
Yes we have.
Why change up the writing team?
We had an embarrassment of great writers, James Vanderbilt, Steve Kloves and Alvin Sergeant on this last movie, and they all brought something very, very different, and very, very powerful. Along the way, Kurtzman and Orci, who are very good friends said, ‘we want to write a Spider-Man film, let us write a Spider-Man movie’. Nobody owns Spider-Man. Stan Lee owns Spider-Man. So we’re giving them an opportunity to do it. They had a very specific hit on it, and we were excited by it, so we’re going with them.
