What a gaffe The Amazing Spider-Man turned out to be. Too quick to reboot a franchise by telling the same origin story only a decade after Tobey Maguire first got bit by a radioactive spider, the Andrew Garfield-starring Spider-Man vehicles never felt fresh. In a move that is being declared a "miracle" by Marvel fans, Spider-Man is leaving Sony and going to the Disney mouse house where the holy Marvel Cinematic Universe is being constructed.
While that was exciting news for fans last night, that leaves Garfield without a web this morning. TheWrap confirms that Spider-Man will be recast by Marvel.
CONFIRMED: Andrew Garfield is NO LONGER Spider-Man. Someone new will be cast. First appearance in MCU, then solo film.
— Linda Ge (@lindazge) February 10, 2015To make a clean break of this, Garfield shouldn't be looked at as the fall guy for the failure of The Amazing Spider-Man. He was an actor on-the-verge after The Social Network, and he did exactly what most on-the-verge actors of his generation did: got a franchise movie. However—unlike Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games), Shailene Woodley (Divergent), and all the younger X-men—Garfield was offered the same origin story to a trilogy that had just ended three years prior.
Those caught in the Spidey blast zone shouldn't necessarily be the cast and filmmakers, but the studio who made them. Sony realized that this was their only superhero property and ramped up a redo way too fast. With it shifting to Marvel, there will be more time and space between... everything else they have. But one question is, what does this do to Sony's Sinister Six (the super-villain Spider-Man oppositional team-up )? Will that become a part of the first Marvel Studios' Spider-Man movie?
As for Garfield, he's still an actor of promise, and this actually might help his career. Hell, he received the news while he's abroad, filming a friggin' Martin Scorsese movie (Garfield plays a Jesuit priest in 17th century Japan in Silence). Yeah, he'll be fine.
And as for his replacement, Linda Ge, the reporter who broke the Spider-Man breakaway from Garfield, has an interesting suggestion:
Now, wouldn't Miles Morales be a good way to avoid to the awkward recasting scenario?
— Linda Ge (@lindazge) February 10, 2015Miles Morales is the black-Hispanic superhero who essentially replaced Peter Parker when Parker died.
