Originally published February 23, 2015. Updated November 13, 2019.
If there is one comic book movie that is oft-mocked and much maligned, its Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. Whether you hate their treatment of Venom, the fact it has too many characters or that dance sequence, it seems that almost everyone on the face of the Earth hates Spider-Man 3.
Apart from the man with the keys to the Marvel castle, Joss Whedon.
In an interview with Empire (who else?) magazine to promote Avengers: Age of Ultron, Whedon spoke about the difficulties of adding Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch into the mix without over-saturating the cast of characters, and used Spider-Man 3 as a comparison piece.
“They have an origin but it’s largely described,” the director said. “They’re already good to go by the time we’re up and running. You don’t want to fall into Spider-Man 3 territory – and I say that as a guy who actually thinks pretty well of that movie, there’s some great stuff in that movie – but there comes a point where you’re overloaded with frontstory, backstory, origin story and it becomes very hard to juggle. My instinct is always, ‘Don’t put in more, work with what you have.'”
What do you make of his comments? Do you think Spider-Man 3 is unfairly overlooked?
Joss Whedon directs Avengers: Age of Ultron, which is set for release in the UK on April 23rd and North America on May 1st with a cast that includes Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Don Cheadle (War Machine), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Paul Bettany (JARVIS / The Vision), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Quicksilver), Elizabeth Olsen (Scarlet Witch), Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), James Spader (Ultron), Thomas Kretschmann (Baron Strucker), Josh Brolin (Thanos), Claudia Kim (Dr. Cho) and Andy Serkis (Uylsses Klaw).
